That brief article doesn't go into the from "where" the profits could arise. I know I posted about this in the past year or two, maybe on TOS, but I was a fireside chat of sorts headed by Ross Perot Jr and AT&T top legal counsel David McAtee. Perot spoke about the new space race being about mining asteroids orbiting the sun in our solar system. You could probably expand that to exoplanets of Jupiter, etc. Asteroids likely contain abundant precious elements and potentially other naturally existing substances that could be used in new energy and energy storage technology. Energy and energy applications is where the trillion(s) would come from.
Obviously, you need a new generation of space craft to exit and enter our atmosphere, and to navigate in, around, and on surfaces beyond earth. That's where this all could be headed.
I joked in the trump 2020 thread about the new Space Force logo resembling the shape of the mythical Lockheed TR3B air/spacecraft. Maybe there is some truth in jest, but keeping the avionics/propulsion tech secret potentially is a trillion plus dollar advantage.
Lockheed's mythical triangle craft supposedly incorporates a mini-nuclear powered engine to highly accelerate a magnetized fluid in a closed circular path in the middle of the triangle. The supposed result is the generation of a toroidal magnetic field with a gravity reducing effect. Thrusters are under each tip of the triangle to for vertical lift, along with a side thruster for horizontal motion.
In principle, this thing could rise straight up and out of our atmosphere into space and re-enter in a controlled vertical drop with a new payload gathered from the solar system. If Elon, Perot Jr, other billionaires are angling to mine asteroids in a new era of innovation, technology and energy use, it's got to incorporate this new kind of space avionics.
Back in post WWII cold war years, we were already developing mini-nuclear engine powered inter-ballistic missiles. German scientists during WWII were also already investigating the use of toroidal magnetic fields for propulsion. So this shit isn't completely insane. Periodically take a look at Lockheed Martin's twitterfeed.