One is a cost, the other is a valuation -- two completely different things. A ditch can cost a million dollars to dig, but have a ~$0 valuation.
I totally understand that I am cherry-picking here. There are many things in the world that are over- or under-valued when you compare their economic contribution to their societal contribution. I just thought this would be an interesting point to make on Hacker News.
No, you could say that it would cost you $20B to build a copy of ITER -- very different. You can't buy ITER for what was paid to build it. Or maybe you can. We have no idea because the valuation is unknown. The project is so risky, we're spreading the cost around 35 countries. If we thought it was more of a sure thing, every country would be trying to build their own. Many companies, too.