FACT: Operating Starlink in Ukraine costs Elon $100 million [1]. FACT: The USGOV only gave SpaceX $3 million for equipment sent to Ukraine [2].
The fact is that Elon, one man, has done more to support Ukraine in the fight against Putin than most countries on earth.
In fact even if Ukrainians weren't receiving it for free Elon would still deserve credit FOR CREATING Starlink in the first place. Thereby allowing Ukrainians to have critical infrastructure in wartime.
The Russians would be parading Zelenskyy’s corpse through the streets of Kiev, if not for Elon’s help.
It doesn't include costs, but it's hard to believe a new contract wouldn't increase the $3M originally paid last year.
It's also interesting to consider the marketing impact of donating terminals and service to Ukraine. Does that drive paid service in other parts of the world that exceeds the cost of operations in Ukraine? I think that data is not likely to be available outside SpaceX, although Wikipedia does list pretty steady growth of subscriber numbers (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Subscribers). So Musk's support of Ukraine may not be entirely altruistic.
Why is the government buying launches a bad thing? SpaceX provides a service that they want. The money would just have gone to Lockheed and Boeing otherwise