There have been several articles saying Elon Musk is going to lose money and be broke soon. This is hogwash. Yes, he lost 200 billion dollars. However he is still the richest man (publicly) in the world.
Space X is doing amazingly well. They launched 61 rockets to space this year. NASA and other space organizations are considering sending SpaceX to save some people. This is in contrast to several companies trying to invest in tech for the military.
The big competition for richest man in the world (publicly) doesn't seem to be working out for others. Warren Buffett is about to become the second richest man again. Amazon and Microsoft have declared themselves for SJW stuff, and are in decline with the rest of Seattle. Buffet has kept his investments smart and regained his spot.
So Elon is doing fine. The competition is defeating itself, while his companies are still rising.
An orbital platform makes more sense than a moon base unless you're mining moon rocks - a moon base just means you need to get out of the moon's gravity well again.
That's easier than Earth's by A LOT plus you can have the moon act as a shield if you are able to fully utilise it and build into the surface
The problem is that you're not launching from the moon instead of from Earth unless a substantial portion of your launch mass is of lunar origin. Otherwise you're spending more delta-V getting your fuel to your moon launch site safely than you would just launching from Earth.
Launching almost solely from the moon is half the reason to build a moon base. That would be one of the most important parts of your lunar infrastructure. Aside from the much lower escape velocity, the near-total lack of an atmosphere means you don't have to fight air drag, and that means you can build up to escape velocity gradually.