2 short answers
I could write pages about that, but to keep it short,
1. Imagine the kudos they'd get; the publcity. Have you heard of a guy called Neil Armstrong? Heard of Apollo? In fact, it might make him as well remembered as Columbus. SpaceX could become the dominant space company for 100 years; if someone wants to launch things, who ya gonna call? Can you imagine the global audience watching people land on Mars - almost certainly the largest ever. How many times have you seen pictures of Apollo? Everyone has, for 50 years. Every newspaper, every TV station, books, movies... all about SpaceX.
2. Feel free to be sceptical, but I honestly don't think it's all about the money. While studying for PhD, Musk made an early 'city guide' website, which made him a multi-millionaire; he invested that to make Paypal, which made him a billionaire. He invested that in SpaceX, which was incredibly risky, and he could have lost almost everything. But at this point, he has so much that why worry - he can buy absolutely anything he may want, without it making a dent. He also has Tesla, and a bunch of other ventures. He could have made SpaceX public, for many billions, but said he'll hold off on that because he doesn't want a corporation just getting as much $ as possible from SpaceX (by launching commercial satellites, etc); he - personally - wants to go to Mars.
(, Sat 14 Apr 2018, 22:57, Share, Reply)