Elon Musk and his friends' personal fortunes are a drop in the bucket compared to an established federal agency's funding. NASA's requested funding for 2014 is $17 billion.
If you count their accumulated physical assets, manpower and "intellectual property" (assuming aerospace knowledge such as that could be valued effectively), you'd find that very few institutions outside of some multinational corporations and government agencies are that big.
I doubt Musk would be able to get such funding every year until 2030, or whatever arbitrary target is set to get a man to Mars.
If you count their accumulated physical assets, manpower and "intellectual property" (assuming aerospace knowledge such as that could be valued effectively), you'd find that very few institutions outside of some multinational corporations and government agencies are that big.
I doubt Musk would be able to get such funding every year until 2030, or whatever arbitrary target is set to get a man to Mars.