The practice of throwing away first stage rockets was anachronistic when I first learned about it, and that was before SpaceX. They are providing an innovative service that serves both government and private business.
Elon isn’t everything that everyone says he is. However, he does know how to take on incredible startup risk and see through it.
I’m not a big fan on what’s happening lately at Twitter and the China connection is very strong for Tesla, so it likely has a big influence on him.