Anybody have experience with one of Elon's companies as a vendor?

Yea, spacex is piecing together starship with scraps and duct tape.

Its a temu rocket

I do. Space X and Tesla.

Space X can be very tough to deal with. But contrast them to Blue Origin (the Bezos space company) - they both have similar pros and cons. Both are new organizations that try to use some legacy Nasa material as a starting point. Watching how either responds and grows from that point is interesting. Both are very tough to get paid by, but a big part of that is on the subs like me. So many subs, for better or worse, grow from being very small and sometimes lack professionalism like documenting change orders and negotiating terms vigorously, then get upset with the buyer. You gotta know your customer and move forward based on that customer's behavior. You gotta negotiate terms up front. You have to be on your game and stop acting like a mom-and-pop company if you want to run with the big boys.

Also getting paid by Space X sucks, but it's no worse than GM, Stellantis (Chrysler), US Steel, Arcelor Mittal, etc... All those big companies really suck to deal with for various reasons, mostly because they know their size and inertia is a weapon against small subs. They all want to pay net 120 or something ridiculous. I know plenty of times people have negotiated out of those terms.

Also GE is far worse than any Musk company for getting paid.

Asking about doing business with Musk or Trump is like asking "I heard playing in the NFL sucks because they hit so hard". Uh, yeah, its the pros man. You are going to get paid a lot but you have to take some very hard hits and be prepared to lose your career at 24 years old for the unlucky injury. You may lose the zillion dollar contract and wind up teaching phys ed or selling insurance with the rest of us.

I have done a lot of business with SpaceX. The people buying do not write the specs. The specs are written by engineers/operators. If the buyers are buying products that meet the specs, what is wrong with getting the cheapest option? That sounds like good business practice.

If your stuff is better quality, but maybe more expensive, its YOUR job to convince the guys writing the specs, that the "total installed cost" and " cost of ownership" is LESS because of your quality.

Stop wasting your time selling the buyers. You need to sell the engineers and operators.

And I was ALWAYS paid on-time.

Great concern troll thread

I leased a Tesla only cause Musk helped Orange win and 0% interest

Its been the best ever

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What I have seen is ignorance with spending. First, they employ inexperienced decision makers. The decision makers are directed to buy the cheapest option. Often the net result costs more than buying a quality option in the first place. I find them to be very frustrating and do not even solicit them.

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So you've lost a few bids after splurging on lunch-n-learns?

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I'll preface by stating that I do support the current efforts to downsize government

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but

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Like a clock.

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by Doremus Jessup

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Poster boy for psychiatry as a profession.

I do business with SpaceX and NASA. What you are saying is true for certain things. For example valves used in transfer of hydrogen, oxygen, etc… they buy pretty cheap because they use them one time and replace. They could buy a very high quality valve that would last longer but if it fails during a transfer, they have major safety problems. Cheaper and one time is how they mitigate very high risk for some products.

That’s my experience with both of them.

Not sorry your sales is subpar