Governments: spend 80 years developing space tech with public funding, allowing humanity to walk on the moon, have global positioning satellites, and essentially kickstart the computing industry from a necessity to build computers for orbital calculations

Yes, government funded endeavors are sometimes the only way to do things that don't have a clear ROI but they are also incredibly inefficient and as such should be kept only until it becomes viable for the private sector to take over.

Private companies: *mostly disappear and waste shareholder money, like Virgin or like Bezos' attempts at space

That's the beauty of the private sector, pure meritocracy, if you suck - you die. If those were public initiatives they would have been kept regardless of the costs or the results, wasting the taxpayer's money instead of the shareholders'.

one company with public funding raking in those 80 years of publicly-funded research to itself

If it was that easy NASA or all the failed companies you mentioned would have done it themselves. SpaceX has done an absolutely incredible job at innovating in the industry that has been in stagnation since the 80s, designing rapidly reusable rockets, lowering the cost per kg to LEO from $72k in today's money, from the space shuttle days to $2500 and planing to reduce it to $10 with starship.

The public funding part doesn't mean free money from the government, the government pays SpaceX for fulfilling contracts because NASA can't do it themselves, at least not as efficiently as SpaceX. Right now majority of SpaceX's revenue comes from starlink which mainly serves private consumers so it's reliance on the government contracts is being overstated.

underpaying and exploiting its engineers

SpaceX $155K-$247K/yr ($117K - $175K/yr base pay + $39K - $72K/yr stock)

NASA $113K - $158K/yr

lowering the costs at the expense of safety due to cutting in safety measures thay will never be tolerated when humans ride those rockets

As of 2025, SpaceX is the only U.S. company with a human-rated rocket system certified by NASA for regular flights to the International Space Station. NASA completed the certification of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket in 2023, marking the first time a commercial system was certified for human spaceflight.

Dumbass liberal lemmitor: pRiVaTe Is ClEaRlY sUpErIoR

Yes.