Well not in it's current form it would have taken them longer to get where they are now. Or it would have send them looking elsewhere.
The NASA contracts allow a return on development work which otherwise would take decades (or never) to return cash. Starlink would be the closest activity to Return on Investment and SpaceX would become another LEO company.
Think it's better then the position they where in in the think it was 2000's somewhere around that area where they needed to try and source 8086 processors because part of their equipment would only run on that.
If this is true it is really leaving out a lot of the story. Space, Avionics and to some extent automotive products use older technology. For very good reason.
Space development has a very high emphasis on reliability. If something goes wrong once launched, the chances that a very expensive product becomes scrap floating around Earth is high. Equally, most people would prefer flying in a plane where the reliability has been more rigorous than the average smart phone.
This has some consequences. It is preferred for things like semiconductor chips and software tools to have some pedigree - usage in the field. Indeed for some certification the tool-flow needs and devices need to have been in full production for more than 3 years. So these industries tend to be behind the curve with latest devices - at least for safety critical devices. Software development is very, very expensive - safety criticality and reliability means a lot of time spent on testing and validation. So generally people want to reuse where at all possible. Hence old code running on old processors.
Another consequence of space is due to physics. Higher up in the atmosphere, the more cosmic radiation can disrupt semiconductors. Radiation hardened devices are often used, which adds $$$$$ and significantly restricts choice of semiconductor. In the past, very expensive space grade components were used on pretty much all the design, as I undestand these days the system is divided up into areas that are safety critical and not so safety critical where the rules are not the same. Plus lots of techniques to validate and correct errors induced by things like cosmic rays.
I agree with you on that one, especially since the Us already has a ''big goverment'' however i think Musk's big govement is referring to something else think that is reffering to social services, health care systems etc. as one of the prime arguments against that is always that it would make the goverment to big etc.
This sort of makes it even worse. Musk's "big government" isn't the government giving his companies fat grants and contracts, that is fine. But if the government tries to help out citizens - that is unacceptable! Besides, I would like to see Musk - or any company - manage with a government that didn't provide things like transport infrastructure, healthcare, education, law enforcement for the citizens. It suits their narrative to decry "big nanny-state government" but the likes of Musk would not get rich in a system that didn't have it.
