That's wildly different from what's being discussed here. SpaceX gets paid to launch satellites by the government exactly the same way any other customer would

That's wildly different from what's being discussed here. SpaceX gets paid to launch satellites by the government exactly the same way any other customer would pay to launch satellites. It's not charity, it's payment for services rendered, and SpaceX won those contracts by being cheaper than the competition. The total contract for the development of the SpaceX lunar lander is $2.9 billion which includes the cost of the actual crewed mission to the moon. For reference, each artemis launch is $4.1 billion not including development cost.