Trump 1 mostly targeted climate and Earth science (when it came to NASA funding). Trump 2/Musk is going after everything. They've just shut down the Office of the Chief Scientist at NASA and are planning to cut fully half of the remaining science budget.

This administration under through Elon is pushing to cut 50% of NASA's science funding. Mapping galaxies we'll never visit is a purely scientific endeavor. Trump seems to care more about military expansion or for lack of a better term more "masculine" expansion of space. The science stuff is not interesting to him, and I'm honestly not sure I think Musk cares about it that much anymore either.

I don't think it's unfounded. This mission is purely about science, in the pursuit of understanding our universe, and is unlikely to lead to any military applications (and even if it might, I doubt Trump et al. would have the foresight to see it).

From the Musk perspective, he wants to go to Mars. Anything that doesn't contribute to that goal could easily go on the chopping block.

Regarding China and the moon, this particular science experiment has nothing to do with that.