Making money is about making things people want. Colonizing Mars is the thing that people want; and every step towards that goal (launch vehicles, human spacecraft, etc) bootstraps them onto the next step. Much like how Amazon works; they forfeit profit today to invest in not just tomorrow, but several decades from now.
Amazon's failures do not result in the obliteration of their most valuable infrastucture. A small hickup isn't likely to completely ruin their company, it will only set them back a small amount.
Amazon isn't launching billion dollar servers that will explode in a big publicly visible fireball when you forget to plug a cable in.
I'm not comparing what Amazon & SpaceX are making, but the very-long-horizon vision both companies are committing to. Amazon reinvests today's income to work towards what they want to be in the 2030s and beyond.
Amazon could start turning a huge profit tomorrow if it wanted. The only reason it doesn't is because of titanic capital expenditures funded by operating profits.
How exactly is a mission to Mars comparable to this?
> SpaceX basically has just one customer which it is entirely reliant upon.
As far as I can tell NASA accounts for less than half of SpaceX's business. According to their website they have nearly $5 billion in contracts and I can only find reference to just over $2 billion in NASA contracts.
> As far as I can tell NASA accounts for less than half of SpaceX's business.
NASA ⊂ "The Government"
SpaceX also has Defense (USAF) contracts. At least around $900 million already awarded (and that may not be all), and they recently sued to be allowed to compete for much more under the EELV program.
Good point, I hadn't realized the USAF contract was awarded to them yet. That puts government funding at significantly more than half of SpaceX's existing contracts. I still wouldn't say they basically have only one customer, but it's closer than I thought.
With the "technological moat" SpaceX is building, does it matter how few customers they have today if no one can compete with them?
Didn't a SpaceX competitor install second-hand 1960s Russian rocket engines in a launch vehicle that failed recently? Its not a fault on the engines - I'm sure they were excellent - but rather an anecdote on the gargantuan barrier to competition inventing new space technology offers SpaceX.
Don't you think Amazon's stock price says differently?
To me, a private Mars colony sounds a lot like an Amazon. An endeavor with a very big mission and a very long execution time.