SpaceX is building launch facilities, office buildings and even a shopping center in rural Texas, as billionaire Elon Musk’s space venture rapidly expands its rocket and satellite business across the Lone Star state.
But a Reuters review of Texas property records shows that SpaceX and its contractors can be far slower to pay builders and suppliers than they are to break ground. Unpaid bills and finger-pointing among contractors, Reuters found, have led many construction-industry businesses to file liens against SpaceX properties in efforts to get compensated.
The result, several of those businesses told Reuters, is a reluctance to work on SpaceX-related projects again. “If they were to call me today, I’d tell them to fuck off,” said Brian Rozelle, an owner of Hydroz Energy Services LLC.
The excavating business was hired by SpaceX to clear storm drains at a facility near Brownsville, the south Texas city where much of the company’s development has taken place. Until about two weeks after Hydroz filed a lien last June – months after it had performed the work – SpaceX didn’t pay its $19,214 bill.
It’s a billionaire classic.
There are quite a few community protests against space X down there, but there local government only sees the tax revenue. Hopefully they can use the income to improve schools an services, but who’s to say?
improve schools
This is texas they are talking about
Sounds like Musk’s taking a page out of the Russian/Ukrainian oligarch book: there’s no point in paying bills ahead of time, if you can make even more money by ignoring the bill for a couple of months
