Doesn’t really matter if the government is the main source that gets it off the ground.

Maybe a upstart paper company was able to snag a contract and they could undercut existing companies because they found an abandoned mill that they got for pennies on the dollar.

National security is definitely an issue, but again nothing to do with how it was built. Thats entirely outside how something is funded.

Edit: just to clarify the majority of all early funding. Today its starlink, government money isnt the main thing now.