[wolverine876]

I don't think anyone can say what will 'very likely' happen, but NASA often hires many contractors and also does much work internally (e.g., at JPL) for a major project. Also, there may be other national space programs partnering in the mission.

[skissane]

My point is - I doubt the first crewed mission to Mars will be a purely private SpaceX-led venture. Almost certainly be done in cooperation with NASA, quite possibly some partner agencies such as ESA, maybe some other firms involved too (e.g. Axiom). And that mission is essentially just going to be “Artemis Base Camp on Mars”, a long way off Musk/SpaceX’s dream of sending a million people there.

Not saying the dream won’t eventually come true, but it if it does, it will take many decades. Come 2100, I think there will be a lot less than 1 million people on Mars.