You're mixing things up. Elon Musk's statement was about the private funding that was initially used to _start_ SpaceX. That statement by Griffin was also made

You're mixing things up. Elon Musk's statement was about the private funding that was initially used to _start_ SpaceX. That statement by Griffin was also made in 2013. SpaceX has had many many billions in private funding since then. https://golden.com/query/list-of-funding-rounds-for-spacex-35DED https://golden.com/query/list-of-funding-rounds-for-spacex-3... Mike Griffin often tries to make himself appear bigger than he actually is. He's a politician after all.