Which brings me to my question: I thought SpaceX was entirely PRIVATELY funded, or is that incorrect?
If you put my hand over a burning flame, I'd swear I read that somewhere --- I just don't remember where.
Funded by Musk and venture capital firms, but primary customer has been NASA: IOW, government contracts.
Which they produced the required hardware for even exceeded the requirements in a competitive program (Orbital Sciences has basically been floundering in this program).
SpaceX has a number of commercial contracts now but remains to be seen how significant those will be in the near term.