The consumer surplus of all these things is the bigger thing.
And getting to that is really not easy.
Externalities are so easily ignored if they don't happen in SF (and even the ones that do. For instance, take a look at the pricing out of affordable housing for all the cooks, dish washers, janitors etc who cater to that highly paid workforce but now have to commute hours each way).
Just because San Francisco is disastrously run despite staggering riches and has horribly magnified problems does not mean it's the fault of people who started companies in San Jose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_Uni...
That's larger than the GDP of all but two countries in the world.
That is not starving.
On top of that, tech CEOs and highly paid tech workers pay a lot of tax. Far more than they cost the country.
I doubt DOGE will recommend cuts to SpaceX funding.
I need to remind you that Mush has invented nothing nor is he an engineer. His vast personal wealth is extracted, and at least part of it's vastness is due to corruption. Mush's personal views expressed on his own-media-trumpet Xitter, have hampered more technological innovation than he has ever enabled or paid for.
BTW what's SpaceX carbon footprint like? This 'man' also just paid for a slice of the US presidency that just pulled the US out of a global treaty to attempt to address human-caused climate crises that are unfolding in front of our face on a daily basis as predicted. Mush has done net harm to Earth, not good.
SpaceX has received $15 billion in government contracts.
I don't think either company would exist without government support.
innovation is risky and rewards accordingly.
Ycombinator app-startups are low-hanging-fruit with marginal innovation and marginal risk => it ain't hardware, and it's just webservices and a few React devs...
SpaceX and DARPA and ARPA = our tax dollars.