I can imagine SpaceX choosing to self-finance a mission to the moon and beat NASA at it.
> I can imagine
That probably does require some imagination. Starting with any incentive to do so.
Elon just said starship will do the entire moon mission:
“Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words.”
To address your question, what is the incentive for going to Mars
>To address your question, what is the incentive for going to Mars
To occupy it. Just look at Musk's t-shirt. Isn't the entire point of SpaceX to go to Mars? Everything else they do is just steps in achieving the occupation of Mars.
> Isn't the entire point of SpaceX to go to Mars?
What? No, it is to concentrate public wealth into the hands of one man.
The tone of voice suggests you dislike Musk, but I will still answer in good faith. From what I can see from the outside, he has consistently for many years stated the same goals and worked on them. Any or most financial gains he made, he invested into his companies which work on accomplishing those goals (for example, going to Mars). The most notable example was investing his PayPal money into Tesla and SpaceX when they both were at risk of going out. He also has a reputation for working a lot, though it may be exaggerated, but he looks fairly unhealthy so maybe not too far off. Compared to other super rich people, he seems to spend less time in lavish ways, for example on yachts or similar. He probably still spends more money than we can imagine on unnecessary things, but on the spectrum of rich people he doesn't seem to be the most frivolous. Finally, he has said on Twitter that he doesn't care about money but needs resources for his goals, for example going to Mars. And after everything I’ve seen and the examples listed, it doesn’t seem totally implausible that he means it.
And all it took was ending public science funding and trust in public health and regulatory oversight and destroying the legislative and judiciary branches. Crazy how all the things it takes to get to Mars are also the same things that make him, personally, wealthier and more powerful.