That $1.6B contract was not free, they had to do a whole lot of work for it. In fact, this was an incredible cheap price for what SpaceX had to provide. So chea

That $1.6B contract was not free, they had to do a whole lot of work for it. In fact, this was an incredible cheap price for what SpaceX had to provide. So cheap in fact that SpaceX lost money on this contract. And they didn't just get $1.6B in cash, the had to clear many milestones and actually fly missions before they got the money. Had Arianespace been required to actually do the same thing, it would likely have cost the government 4+ billion $. So this 'not small' contract was actually an incredible hart to fulfill and incredibly risky gamble by SpaceX.