Isn't Arianespace the number one commercial launcher's company?

France might want to keep the OST, but it's ironic they were ahead in the commercial launching business (granted, it may change).

Private companies taking care of the conquest of space?
Privately owned satellites depend on launchers: no launcher, no satellites. Private companies owning a Moon or Mars bases ...with all the infrastructure going from the launch platfiorms, the rocket builders on Earth, to the satellites or spaceships or capsules or space stations in space, bases on alien worlds, to their return on Earth (FAA regulations).
Hugo Drax is a fictional character, but he looks so much like what a space entrepreneur would need to be.

Any private company capable in fulfilling the dream of private enterprise in space is going to have to be so powerful and wealthy that it's going to be almost undistinguishable from a country (sort of like a state in the state, capable of bending rules in their favor and against their own competition).
So far, none totally independant from any government regulation, has succeeded.
But NASA did succeed in taking a man to the Moon and bringing back alive.
Raoul