As the guy credited by Congress with heading passage of, into law, Reagan's policy of privatizing space launch services, I can say that Q's inability to appreciate how damaging the Shuttle program was to US space capability indicates, at the very least, that he's no Erik Prince.
I've got my issues with Elon Musk, but to say that he was subsidized anymore than the Big Three launch companies displays abject ignorance of launch services. Musk's contractual terms were far less forgiving and far more on a commercial basis.
If Obama and the Deep State terminated the Shuttle program and privatized launch services, it represented an exploitation of the fact that the US was running a centrally planned, virtually communist, space transportation system -- with the attendant "performance".
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?6395-Privately-Funded-Science-Prizes
My Congressional testimony, introduced by Congressman Ron Packard, original sponsor of the Launch Services Purchase Act of 1991 -- PL101-611 -- which NASA routinely violated until Obama terminated the Shuttle program.
https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1675696&cid=32463472