Let's say they make 30 million profit from each Falcon 9 launch. Last year they did 31 launches, but half of those were Starlink launches. That's 15x30 = $450 million profit off Falcon 9, plus whatever they made from Dragon.
You're probably right that they would be fine as a company if they couldn't get any more money. SpaceX could operate at a decent profit and still do either Starlink or Starship at reduced pace. The "free money" just allows them to get to their goals a lot faster.
Absolute worst case scenario it goes bankrupt and ends up like the second corporate incarnation of Iridium under entirely new owners. Which is very much a successful and essential, mission critical business today.
Department of Defense has had a perhaps unexpected taste of Starlink’s capabilities in real warfare and they will not let them go. I expect a large infusion of cash from that direction if anything bad was on the horizon.
I mean, read what little official commentary is available from them. You can practically hear those guys salivating at what they’re seeing: unjammable, indestructible, untappable communications infrastructure with high bandwidth and 5 min setup time in the field, man portable if necessary.
A big difference is Starlink satellites are low enough that they will reenter the atmosphere in 5-10 years. So, a short shelf life limits its value as an investment.
Musk has said that for Starlink to be successful they need the launch capabilities of Starship.
So what? At 100$/month, the initial 1000$ "subsidy" is paid off and the dish generates naked profit - internet contracts can run for extremely long, especially if there is no competition.
Cable and DSL networks renting you a shitty 50$ modem for 5-10$ a month or charging you 5$ for the privilege of using the shitty wifi AP are worse in that regard.
See: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/22/elon-musks-spacex-looks-to-r...
It's going to be interesting to see in what shape Space X survives the end of the "free money" era.