13 comments

  • 14989aiuh 54 minutes ago
    It is worth $2T on paper because they issued an artificially small float. They have a small fraction of Ford's revenue and tons of risky debt:

    https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/spacex-get...

    This may be the first domino in a systemic AI loan and debt crisis.

    • ben_w 33 minutes ago
      I dunno about first domino, but I do suspect new laws will get written to prevent future businesses performing a "Musk scheme".
  • hn_acker 25 minutes ago
    Just because a headline is chosen to make you feel semething doesn't mean it's clickbait. The headline is the editor's/author's restatement of the restaurant owner's own questions which were quoted in the article body.
  • silverFork 33 minutes ago
    What was interesting was that had promised to pay him 3 times already. If _M_sk had paid for it himself.. it will be like $5 to him or few seconds to accumulate $60k from interest alone.
    • toomuchtodo 16 minutes ago
      It’s about power and control, as it always is in this context. It would take but a moment to arrange a wire transfer, it is an active choice not to make the vendor whole.
  • hn_acker 1 hour ago
    The original title is:

    > SpaceX is worth $2 trillion. So why hasn’t it paid this Bay Area chef the $70,000 it owes him?

    • epolanski 58 minutes ago
      Is there anything "original" anymore when it comes to thumbnails or titles?

      They are tweaked all time to maximize views.

  • timpera 56 minutes ago
    > An accountant for SpaceX called Bell on Friday to inform him a payment was being processed — a call that came “shortly after” the Chronicle reached out to the company a second time for comment. Bell, however, told the Chronicle that this was the third time he had been told his payment had been initiated.

    From non-paywalled article: https://www.rawstory.com/elon-musk-2678070490/

  • righthand 53 minutes ago
    > Bell did not sign a written contract with SpaceX, but said he verbally agreed to the company’s terms of payment within 30 days.

    Wrong move. Though I’m sure he’d win in court regardless, it is now a much longer drawn out process.

  • ciconia 52 minutes ago
    > “It just kind of hit me,” Bell said. “We’re the blue-collar guys cooking this food, hustling to make this work for these young kids making like six figures, and this entity that has a trillion dollars, can’t pay us?”

    Welcome to tech bro utopia, where humanity in its entirety must grovel and worship and lick the boots of those who in their magnanimity allow us merit-less wretches to work for them for pennies, or, as in this case, for free. Oh what a wonderful future these guys have in store for us!

  • mgoetzke 58 minutes ago
    this headline is so click-baity i am not sure the entire article is actually serious already
  • qwe10298 47 minutes ago
    The Musk brigades have flagged this evidence of financial troubles from the front page.
  • deadstate 25 minutes ago
    Because spacex is run by a mean and petty sociopath cunt.
  • addaon 1 hour ago
    (Paywalled.)
  • Kevin_Flynn 52 minutes ago
    I'm going to pretend to take the headline seriously, without reading it.

    1. Because real companies have accounts payable procedures, where transactions are examined and processed according to procedure, in varying degrees of time, depending on the circumstance.

    2. Profitable companies, or those that hope to be so, make sure there is always a backlog of work available, which creates some amount of delay in all payments.

    3. Elon whispered in someones ear and said "the food sucks, take care of it." This is pure speculation on my part, but it makes for a good scene in a villian movie.

    • hn_acker 28 minutes ago
      > 1. Because real companies have accounts payable procedures, where transactions are examined and processed according to procedure, in varying degrees of time, depending on the circumstance.

      > 2. Profitable companies, or those that hope to be so, make sure there is always a backlog of work available, which creates some amount of delay in all payments.

      Your first two points are addressed by:

      > Desperate, Bell called SpaceX’s senior accountant on Sept. 17 and left a voicemail. “I said, ‘Something seems a little weird, and I don’t know if I should be getting a lawyer,’” he said.

      > Bell said he received two responses within the hour. The first was a call from the accountant, who told him his payment had been initiated and should land in his bank account in the next few days. Bell said that as of Oct. 9 it had not arrived.

      > On Friday, shortly after the Chronicle reached out to SpaceX for the second time, an accountant called Bell and told him payment was on its way. Bell said this is the third time the company has told him payment has been initiated.

      Your third point can go unaddressed.

  • bko 57 minutes ago
    Why is some random vendor dispute newsworthy?

    I miss real journalism. I don't know what the hell this is

    • nvdk 53 minutes ago
      An invoice being just a few days over it's due date is indeed not really serious. I don't think it's a smart move on the restaurant either, if they had any intention on continuing the contract this just about kills it.
    • hn_acker 20 minutes ago
      > Desperate, Bell called SpaceX’s senior accountant on Sept. 17 and left a voicemail. “I said, ‘Something seems a little weird, and I don’t know if I should be getting a lawyer,’” he said.

      > Bell said he received two responses within the hour. The first was a call from the accountant, who told him his payment had been initiated and should land in his bank account in the next few days. Bell said that as of Oct. 9 it had not arrived.

      > On Friday, shortly after the Chronicle reached out to SpaceX for the second time, an accountant called Bell and told him payment was on its way. Bell said this is the third time the company has told him payment has been initiated.

      This is just how "random" vendor "disputes" go? I disagree.

      • bko 0 minutes ago
        Isn't this like every other dispute that goes to a public forum and gets resolved? You see these every other week where Google or some other company locks someone out of their account and then they make a stink and then it gets resolved.
    • hluska 50 minutes ago
      It’s the San Francisco Chronicle’s Restaurant section.
      • nomel 27 minutes ago
        I saw it on the hacker news front page.