The billionaires who look for every tax loophole possible certainly know the value of “funding”. They are currently funding their yachts to take them to their superyachts. Private equity controlled health care companies are extracting billions of dollars in profits (read: overcharging people who want to live) leading to “efficiencies” like understaffing and under training which cause thousands of excess deaths every year.
Elon Musk received plenty of government funding for his companies as well. And guess what? BYD sells more cars than Tesla now (a few years ago Elon said he wasn’t worried about them and now they’re suddenly a problem) because of what? Government funding. Governments have also funded the majority of fundamental research which made present day technologies possible. Even today NIST, DARPA, NHS, NSF etc continue to fund science and technology research.
Elon Musk received plenty of government funding for his companies as well. And guess what? BYD sells more cars than Tesla now (a few years ago Elon said he wasn’t worried about them and now they’re suddenly a problem) because of what? Government funding. Governments have also funded the majority of fundamental research which made present day technologies possible. Even today NIST, DARPA, NHS, NSF etc continue to fund science and technology research.