I assume you are not aware that this is NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab(JPL), not a general NASA layoff as you may have guessed from the headline. You seem to have based your entire comment on that premise if so this is all painful to read honestly, a huge miss.
The JPL is responsible for some of the most cutting edge research in space robotics and probes, the name is a relic of its origin in the post war era, it is not an actual rocket research factory or anything like that.
Even though there are obvious issues with the SLS program, I'm not sure how much of that is NASA's fault, right away you're giving NASA way too much credit and autonomy that doesn't exist IRL at all. The privatization was the point, SpaceX is the culmination of what started in the 70s so trying to give relative praise to SpaceX's achievements here is literaly the Obama self-medal meme. I would expect you to spot this from mile away. The US government defuned NASA after declaring the space race "won" and ever since then the budget is still less than it was in 1965!
America never actually gave a shit about space exploration, even though most Americans wouldn't mind a higher NASA budget there is nothing the public can do about it. The fact is the NASA isn't just "stuck" in past glory. Don't mistake NASA and their actual research for the shit America uses as daily life propaganda. Things like the Hubble, the JWST, all the Mars and space probes etc are all incredibly important and valuable, nobody would object to this fact.
And yet hardly any of that makes the news. It seems like NASA is irrelevant because yes to some extent if you only look at modern culture, the average American couldn't name a US space probe or gives a single fuck about Mars etc.
The JWST alone was a huge worldwide boost to astronomy and physics research, teams from around the world are eager and reliant on it.
Finally the point was always that nothing SpaceX does is uniquely because its a private company or anything. Yes I agree and indeed there is undeniably some cool tech behind the Raptor engines but that is not meaningful rhetoric, Its like saying the F-22 was a huge boost in composite material research. The US could have all of that through the public sector is the point.