[bzzzt]

It's not as expensive as it looks, Starship plus booster costs around 100 million. A Saturn V Apollo mission cost 185 million in 1969 which, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V#Cost, would now be a bit less than a billion dollars.

Also, SpaceX is not building rockets, they are building a rocket factory. If they succeed they will have lowered the cost of putting stuff into space by an order of magnitude. The potential rewards are huge.

[mempko]

Yes but at this point the upper stage is barely a spaceship. Mostly an empty shell. And they have spent $10 billion so far on something that barely flies.

[twirlip]

R&D and prototyping is an up-front expense. Amortization over many units spreads out the costs to long term profitability. Does SpaceX have that kind of time, though? A prospective global depression would dry up the capital for funding Starship development.

[spwa4]

Clearly this is not true. I'm not even sure what about it is not true, but there must be some reason Musk paid Trump to destroy his competition.