> More generally, no private company would be able to fund fundamental research and turn a profit.

I have to imagine you mean turn a profit directly on the research itself (isolated down to the cost per specific item of research).

Because obviously big tech can quite trivially fund fundamental research at an enormous scale as they see fit while printing their traditional gigantic profits.

Apple + Microsoft + Facebook + Amazon + Nvidia + Google = over half a trillion dollars in annual operating income (around $126 billion in op income last quarter).

They could fund NASA (~$25 billion) and would never really notice it. It'd take about four to six months of further op income growth by those six companies and NASA's budget would be covered in perpetuity.