He doesn't so much as say it, but show it in his eyes how much the NASA contract meant and how much passion he has.
Another area of the interview I found telling was when Musk described 2008 and how he essentially lost all his money, got divorced, and almost faced a nervous breakdown. Musk isn't some billionaire playboy, he's a brilliant man with the conviction to take bold risks that could change the world and he's experienced the highs and lows of that journey. I'll admit I was a Musk fan before watching this interview, but now I'm even more impressed with him.
Musk has also accumulated tales of his immaturity as a business leader -- trying to switch PayPal to Windows, for example -- but if 2008 was a turning point for him, then he went through it a lot faster than Jobs.
Of course plenty of other people who have gone through crises and come out the other side much more fit. The entrepreneur's hero's journey?
Aerospace, especially space, is tightly linked with government spending, period.
Also, does the fact that Musk bet his entire fortune means he's a freeloader on corporate welfare?
Without an opportunity and potential like SpaceX, all the public money would have are cases like Solyndra.
The reality was, NASA needed SpaceX as much as SpaceX needed NASA.
A few large companies and governments were his obvious targets. Just like large defense contractors exist on "public" money.
Exactly. The military-industrial complex lives mostly on public money.
That's what I said. Is there some other point that you're trying to make? Getting a government contract isn't taking donations. You deliver a service or a product and you get paid for it. The US government spends a lot of money. Cray Supercomputer sold systems to the government too, for example. I imagine that if Elon wants to build his electric jet someday, one of his best business planes would be to build electric jet drones for the US government.
Sorry if you don't agree with the decision but at this point we're just debating politics.