> Despite the gap, Bezos is slowly gaining ground. He's flying passengers and he's winning government contracts.

He's flying passengers? They stopped new shepherd and that was suborbital to begin with. You can't compare the 2 at all. Getting people to orbit is much much harder than 'a hop'.

On the government contracts, yes they did get some. Some through lawyers though and they still have to show that they can actually deliver. SpaceX has to deliver on HLS as well, but the ISS has one American ride up and that's crew dragon.