Starlink and low-orbit sats for internet coverage are a similar leap ahead in cost and speed to deploy. Elon and his goons saw it coming long before anyone else did, and the fact they also have Space X was a pretty key part of their speed to deploy.

Starlink was SpaceXs solution to having a reusable first stage rocket and not enough demand for all the flights they could now do.

They basically poured billions into perfecting reuse, and had to find a way to make money on the new but upfront costly capabilities so they came up with starlink.

Edit: it also gave them a safer way to more easily test flight proven rockets with what was at the time more weary customers of the tech. For awhile NASA still wanted new rockets, but then became fine with flight proven as all the extra flights showed it was okay.