8 ms·

Aren't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances and they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money to pay.

reaperducer 2y ago
Aren't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances and they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money to pay. Considering that SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company, my guess is that neither the Twitter people, nor the SpaceX people, nor the federal buyout people will ever see a dime. For some reason, links to stories about the leins and SpaceX becoming notorious for not paying its bills are hard to come by, but it's in the printed newspapers regularly; as recently as yesterday. Here's and older link I could find: https://www.chron.com/culture/article/spacex-overdue-bills-texas-19454904.php https://www.chron.com/culture/article/spacex-overdue-bills-t...
- weinzierl 2y ago
  I am complete outsider and know nothing about this so I am sorry to ask but in my view this is a shocking proposition. Can anyone corroborate this? EDIT: Specifically the claim that "SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company"
  - hx8 2y ago
    Corroborating complaints about twitter severance [0]. The lawsuit was dismissed because of jurisdiction, not merit. [0] https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musk-beats-500-million-severance-lawsuit-by-fired-twitter-workers-2024-07-10/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musk-beats-500-million-se...
  - scottyah 2y ago
    They churn through employees fast and they usually exit through burnout (no offloading) and the people wanting to work there skew towards young people who don't know what they're doing. A lot of work gets delayed, dropped, etc and some bad suppliers even take advantage of that ("the last person said they'd do X"). I know it's en-vogue to hate on Elon companies, and a lot of people would love to hear that the World's Richest Man is having financial issues, but in reality it's a bunch of starry-eyed newgrads trying to make the world better but taking on more than they can handle.
    - djohnston 2y ago
      It's remarkable that, for a bunch of young people who don't know what they're doing, they've completely decimated any competitors - both public and private.
      - renewiltord 2y ago
        These guys are idiots, fucking morons, and can’t get anything right. Somehow they’re also outcompeting us on everything. It isn’t clear why, but it must be because we are smarter.
        ben_w 2y ago
        China very effective at copying all the stuff SpaceX is doing despite this being deliberately made difficult by ITAR, suggests there's a lot of room for the American (and ESA) competitors to be structurally inept without needing Musk's staff to be demonstrating an unusual (as opposed to industry standard) degree of genius.
        emusan 2y ago
        They have copied the external look of the rockets (which is, for obvious reasons, not protected by ITAR), but to my knowledge no one, China or otherwise, has managed to match the internal engineering prowess nearly a decade later. To say that China is "very effective at copying all the stuff SpaceX is doing" is quite the stretch.
        adastra22 2y ago
        Blue Origin has finally turned it around and is getting close to matching SpaceX.
        ben_w 2y ago
        I sure hope so, but also caution (admittedly as an outsider, your posts suggest greater familiarity than I have) that there's not enough evidence yet to be confident of that — finally getting to launch is really impressive, but their first orbital capable rocket is still a sample size of 1. (Counter point is that New Glenn's one orbital launch is more impressive than all of the Starship launches combined, as SpaceX is willing to burn hardware during tests and they have many more Starship tests to go).
  - infecto 2y ago
    To be a neutral as possible. The claim is very much a hit piece that makes a good soundbite or headline. Most large construction projects have single digit liens that get placed against it and in this case we don't know what % of the liens are because of contractors not paying and which are SpaceX themself.
  - araes 2y ago
    Hadn't heard of it either until up-thread so I looked. The two primary articles that were found on a search were from Reuters and the San Antonio Express News. Most other seem to just be referencing the Reuters article and using the same quotes. Tend to think the opinion up-thread is probably close, and SpaceX is basically not paying because they can, because people want the work, and because they can make more holding the money and delaying as long as possible, while eating relatively small fees. Reuters, May 2024: "Quick to Build, Slow to Pay" https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-quick-build-texas-slow-pay-its-bills-2024-05-13/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-qui... SAEN, Feb, 2025: "Contractors say they're owed more than $5.5 million" https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/spacex-unpaid-contractors-liens-5-5m-starbase-20024781.php https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/spacex-unpaid-c... There's also a "somewhat" unique one from MySanAntonio that goes over the general range of lawsuits that are being filed against Musk in Texas over a range of issues. It happens to include the Reuters article lawsuits and liens as one of the many listed. MySanAntonio, Sept, 2024: "lawsuits in Texas" https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/austin/article/elon-musk-texas-lawsuits-19787185.php https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/austin/article/elon-musk-t...
- bmitc 2y ago
  They're hard to come by because people think rockets magically solve all of our problems and so any problems they introduce are ignored for the "greater good".
- robocat 2y ago
  The article mentions $2.5MM liens which is drastically less than 1% of expenses of $1445MM ("[SpaceX] generated $55 million in profit on $1.5 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2023") It don't appear to be because SpaceX is having trouble paying. I would guess SpaceX are delaying payment as much as possible because it is cheap lending and because it's run as an extremely mercenary company. Their costs of deliquent payment are likely below their lending costs. So optimally don't pay until the cost of deliquency exceeds lending costs (maybe ≈ junk bond rate per year).
  - ben_w 2y ago
    While interesting, I don't see how it might make any difference to any federal workers' decisions? Musk doesn't pay "because he can get away with it" isn't better or worse than "because there's a money shortage"; and in any case, the federal government being delinquent is a very different kind of catastrophe, as is it making promises it refuses to keep.
    - Spooky23 2y ago
      Many things are based on the assumption of the impeccable credit of the US government. Elmo being a shitty business partner isn’t the same as the US.
      - ben_w 2y ago
        We're on the same page, I think. There's a possibility of contagion from Musk to the US government, but I very much agree they're different — and it's much worse if that contagion goes from potential to actual.
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    Who give a shit what their revenue is. It tells me nothing about how they pay their vendors. 2.5mm in liens is just how much they have proveably shorted construction workers in Texas. It doesn't count other vendors doing work that isn't elegible for a lien, or how many workers got shorted, but it just wasn't enough to worry about. If you were one of the 70+ businesses that held a lien against them, you would think differently. > It don't appear to be because SpaceX is having trouble paying. Having the cash to be paid out, and having the systems in place to pay your bills are two different things. > I would guess SpaceX are delaying payment as much as possible because it is cheap lending and because it's run as an extremely mercenary company. Violating the terms of your contract isn't cheap lending. It is fraud. The fact that they are getting away with it isn't a defense. > Their costs of deliquent payment are likely below their lending costs. So optimally don't pay until the cost of deliquency exceeds lending costs (maybe ≈ junk bond rate per year). Consistently and intentionally violating the terms of payment is, as noted above, fraud. They are getting away with, and they might continue to get away with it, but mercenary businesses getting away with crime is a bad thing.
- casenmgreen 2y ago
  Is it possible Mr. Musk's companies are actually in deep trouble financially, and this political stuff is actually a means to an end?
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    Tesla is abundantly wealthy mostly on the back of it's delusional investors creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
    - dgfitz 2y ago
      Sounds like crypto…
    - ty6853 2y ago
      As was Enron...
      - labster 2y ago
        Enron is making a comeback now: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/02/business/enron-resurrected-joke-nightcap/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/02/business/enron-resurrected-jo...
        evan_ 2y ago
        as a crypto play apparently, so > mostly on the back of [its] delusional investors creating a self-fulfilling prophecy continues to hold true.
    - im3w1l 2y ago
      I'm not saying you are wrong, but GME is an interesting contrast. Despite delusional investors they didn't manage to make anything of it.
      - adastra22 2y ago
        They're still around. Remember they were shorted because they seemed on the verge of bankruptcy..
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- atkailash 2y ago
  [dead]
- UltraSane 2y ago
  https://www.fastcompany.com/91124157/spacex-contractors-texas-say-musk-slow-to-pay-bills https://www.fastcompany.com/91124157/spacex-contractors-texa... https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-quick-build-texas-slow-pay-its-bills-2024-05-13/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-qui...
carom 2y ago
To my knowledge, no. Former employees sued to get Twitter's old pre-acquisition severance package and the court dismissed it. [1] 1. https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/10/elon-musk-does-not-owe-ex-twitter-staffers-500-million-in-severance-court-rules/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/10/elon-musk-does-not-owe-ex-...
- breadwinner 2y ago
  How about this: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-loses-battle-dismiss-233031415.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-loses-battle-dismis...
  - yashasolutions 2y ago
    This one is about executives not regular employees.
- refreeze654 2y ago
  This is not true. There are thousands of cases at various stages still in progress. This ruling was specific to one specific avenue being pursued. Source: the body of the article you posted.
  - carom 2y ago
    Can you quote the part about thousands or provide a source? I see that there is an ongoing executive lawsuit and one for managers but didn't see anything about thousands of individual lawsuits.
    - refreeze654 2y ago
      Fair point that it wasn't quoted. Here's a summary: https://www.twitterlayofflawsuit.com/case-summaries https://www.twitterlayofflawsuit.com/case-summaries
gpm 2y ago
The senior executives still are. Case: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68307087/agrawal-v-musk/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68307087/agrawal-v-musk... The only substantive order in the case to date appears to be one denying Elon Musk et al.'s motion to dismiss one of the claims: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.425731/gov.uscourts.cand.425731.73.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.42...
- amscanne 2y ago
  That would be a separate issue, those are not the terms of a buy-out package initiated after the acquisition, but rather wanting to enforce the terms of their original agreements (because Musk terminated them).

reaperducer 2y ago

Aren't Twitter workers still trying to get their severances and they took the offer when Twitter actually had the money to pay. Considering that SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company, my guess is that neither the Twitter people, nor the SpaceX people, nor the federal buyout people will ever see a dime. For some reason, links to stories about the leins and SpaceX becoming notorious for not paying its bills are hard to come by, but it's in the printed newspapers regularly; as recently as yesterday. Here's and older link I could find: https://www.chron.com/culture/article/spacex-overdue-bills-texas-19454904.php https://www.chron.com/culture/article/spacex-overdue-bills-t...

weinzierl 2y ago
I am complete outsider and know nothing about this so I am sorry to ask but in my view this is a shocking proposition. Can anyone corroborate this? EDIT: Specifically the claim that "SpaceX is so far behind on its bills that dozens and dozens of companies in Texas have had to place liens against the company"
- hx8 2y ago
  Corroborating complaints about twitter severance [0]. The lawsuit was dismissed because of jurisdiction, not merit. [0] https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musk-beats-500-million-severance-lawsuit-by-fired-twitter-workers-2024-07-10/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/elon-musk-beats-500-million-se...
- scottyah 2y ago
  They churn through employees fast and they usually exit through burnout (no offloading) and the people wanting to work there skew towards young people who don't know what they're doing. A lot of work gets delayed, dropped, etc and some bad suppliers even take advantage of that ("the last person said they'd do X"). I know it's en-vogue to hate on Elon companies, and a lot of people would love to hear that the World's Richest Man is having financial issues, but in reality it's a bunch of starry-eyed newgrads trying to make the world better but taking on more than they can handle.
  - djohnston 2y ago
    It's remarkable that, for a bunch of young people who don't know what they're doing, they've completely decimated any competitors - both public and private.
    - renewiltord 2y ago
      These guys are idiots, fucking morons, and can’t get anything right. Somehow they’re also outcompeting us on everything. It isn’t clear why, but it must be because we are smarter.
      - ben_w 2y ago
        China very effective at copying all the stuff SpaceX is doing despite this being deliberately made difficult by ITAR, suggests there's a lot of room for the American (and ESA) competitors to be structurally inept without needing Musk's staff to be demonstrating an unusual (as opposed to industry standard) degree of genius.
        emusan 2y ago
        They have copied the external look of the rockets (which is, for obvious reasons, not protected by ITAR), but to my knowledge no one, China or otherwise, has managed to match the internal engineering prowess nearly a decade later. To say that China is "very effective at copying all the stuff SpaceX is doing" is quite the stretch.
        adastra22 2y ago
        Blue Origin has finally turned it around and is getting close to matching SpaceX.
        ben_w 2y ago
        I sure hope so, but also caution (admittedly as an outsider, your posts suggest greater familiarity than I have) that there's not enough evidence yet to be confident of that — finally getting to launch is really impressive, but their first orbital capable rocket is still a sample size of 1. (Counter point is that New Glenn's one orbital launch is more impressive than all of the Starship launches combined, as SpaceX is willing to burn hardware during tests and they have many more Starship tests to go).
- infecto 2y ago
  To be a neutral as possible. The claim is very much a hit piece that makes a good soundbite or headline. Most large construction projects have single digit liens that get placed against it and in this case we don't know what % of the liens are because of contractors not paying and which are SpaceX themself.
- araes 2y ago
  Hadn't heard of it either until up-thread so I looked. The two primary articles that were found on a search were from Reuters and the San Antonio Express News. Most other seem to just be referencing the Reuters article and using the same quotes. Tend to think the opinion up-thread is probably close, and SpaceX is basically not paying because they can, because people want the work, and because they can make more holding the money and delaying as long as possible, while eating relatively small fees. Reuters, May 2024: "Quick to Build, Slow to Pay" https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-quick-build-texas-slow-pay-its-bills-2024-05-13/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-qui... SAEN, Feb, 2025: "Contractors say they're owed more than $5.5 million" https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/spacex-unpaid-contractors-liens-5-5m-starbase-20024781.php https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/spacex-unpaid-c... There's also a "somewhat" unique one from MySanAntonio that goes over the general range of lawsuits that are being filed against Musk in Texas over a range of issues. It happens to include the Reuters article lawsuits and liens as one of the many listed. MySanAntonio, Sept, 2024: "lawsuits in Texas" https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/austin/article/elon-musk-texas-lawsuits-19787185.php https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/austin/article/elon-musk-t...
bmitc 2y ago
They're hard to come by because people think rockets magically solve all of our problems and so any problems they introduce are ignored for the "greater good".
robocat 2y ago
The article mentions $2.5MM liens which is drastically less than 1% of expenses of $1445MM ("[SpaceX] generated $55 million in profit on $1.5 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2023") It don't appear to be because SpaceX is having trouble paying. I would guess SpaceX are delaying payment as much as possible because it is cheap lending and because it's run as an extremely mercenary company. Their costs of deliquent payment are likely below their lending costs. So optimally don't pay until the cost of deliquency exceeds lending costs (maybe ≈ junk bond rate per year).
- ben_w 2y ago
  While interesting, I don't see how it might make any difference to any federal workers' decisions? Musk doesn't pay "because he can get away with it" isn't better or worse than "because there's a money shortage"; and in any case, the federal government being delinquent is a very different kind of catastrophe, as is it making promises it refuses to keep.
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    Many things are based on the assumption of the impeccable credit of the US government. Elmo being a shitty business partner isn’t the same as the US.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      We're on the same page, I think. There's a possibility of contagion from Musk to the US government, but I very much agree they're different — and it's much worse if that contagion goes from potential to actual.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  Who give a shit what their revenue is. It tells me nothing about how they pay their vendors. 2.5mm in liens is just how much they have proveably shorted construction workers in Texas. It doesn't count other vendors doing work that isn't elegible for a lien, or how many workers got shorted, but it just wasn't enough to worry about. If you were one of the 70+ businesses that held a lien against them, you would think differently. > It don't appear to be because SpaceX is having trouble paying. Having the cash to be paid out, and having the systems in place to pay your bills are two different things. > I would guess SpaceX are delaying payment as much as possible because it is cheap lending and because it's run as an extremely mercenary company. Violating the terms of your contract isn't cheap lending. It is fraud. The fact that they are getting away with it isn't a defense. > Their costs of deliquent payment are likely below their lending costs. So optimally don't pay until the cost of deliquency exceeds lending costs (maybe ≈ junk bond rate per year). Consistently and intentionally violating the terms of payment is, as noted above, fraud. They are getting away with, and they might continue to get away with it, but mercenary businesses getting away with crime is a bad thing.
casenmgreen 2y ago
Is it possible Mr. Musk's companies are actually in deep trouble financially, and this political stuff is actually a means to an end?
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  Tesla is abundantly wealthy mostly on the back of it's delusional investors creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    Sounds like crypto…
  - ty6853 2y ago
    As was Enron...
    - labster 2y ago
      Enron is making a comeback now: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/02/business/enron-resurrected-joke-nightcap/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/02/business/enron-resurrected-jo...
      - evan_ 2y ago
        as a crypto play apparently, so > mostly on the back of [its] delusional investors creating a self-fulfilling prophecy continues to hold true.
  - im3w1l 2y ago
    I'm not saying you are wrong, but GME is an interesting contrast. Despite delusional investors they didn't manage to make anything of it.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      They're still around. Remember they were shorted because they seemed on the verge of bankruptcy..
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
atkailash 2y ago
[dead]
UltraSane 2y ago
https://www.fastcompany.com/91124157/spacex-contractors-texas-say-musk-slow-to-pay-bills https://www.fastcompany.com/91124157/spacex-contractors-texa... https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-quick-build-texas-slow-pay-its-bills-2024-05-13/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-qui...

carom 2y ago

To my knowledge, no. Former employees sued to get Twitter's old pre-acquisition severance package and the court dismissed it. [1] 1. https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/10/elon-musk-does-not-owe-ex-twitter-staffers-500-million-in-severance-court-rules/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/10/elon-musk-does-not-owe-ex-...

breadwinner 2y ago
How about this: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-loses-battle-dismiss-233031415.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-loses-battle-dismis...
- yashasolutions 2y ago
  This one is about executives not regular employees.
refreeze654 2y ago
This is not true. There are thousands of cases at various stages still in progress. This ruling was specific to one specific avenue being pursued. Source: the body of the article you posted.
- carom 2y ago
  Can you quote the part about thousands or provide a source? I see that there is an ongoing executive lawsuit and one for managers but didn't see anything about thousands of individual lawsuits.
  - refreeze654 2y ago
    Fair point that it wasn't quoted. Here's a summary: https://www.twitterlayofflawsuit.com/case-summaries https://www.twitterlayofflawsuit.com/case-summaries

gpm 2y ago

The senior executives still are. Case: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68307087/agrawal-v-musk/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68307087/agrawal-v-musk... The only substantive order in the case to date appears to be one denying Elon Musk et al.'s motion to dismiss one of the claims: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.425731/gov.uscourts.cand.425731.73.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.42...

amscanne 2y ago
That would be a separate issue, those are not the terms of a buy-out package initiated after the acquisition, but rather wanting to enforce the terms of their original agreements (because Musk terminated them).