NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

This would be such a dumb move on the government's part. "Lose the new space race" is ridiculous PR-brain. We are not racing to the same goal! China is trying to land on the moon, we are trying to establish a permanent presence. There is no value to merely returning to the moon to say we did it, and Starship is the only vehicle that can plausibly deliver huge quantities of cargo to the lunar surface.

What’s the main motivation for the moon? Is it a better location than the international space station? What’s the reasoning there?

I think its to prepare for mars (sort of), its the closest place where we can build a self-sustaining civilization.