1. They’re actually used as ways of laundering money out of government pockets without congressional oversight. The whole “oh but it’s top top secret” excuse is an easy one.
2. The positive and negative attention are all part of a plan to convince enemy nations that the US has access to incredible technology. I mean, if I wanted to spook Putin, I’d probably also sign a bill condemning the work on the trillion megaton nuclear bomb. What trillion megaton nuclear bomb? The one we’re condemning!
But let’s pretend it is real.
What is the point of congress withdrawing such funding? Elon steps in, and then such tech is in the hands of a private company rather than the government. How is that a good thing for the US govt?
It sounds (to my naive British mind, which knows very little about congress or its stance on various things) that it’d have been preferable to give a timeline for these projects to present themselves to congress. Immediately condemning them and convincing whistleblowers to present them instead just seems like a backwards way of doing it.