Small businesses helped build Musk’s empire. Their unpaid bills add up to millions
When Jennifer Meissner’s small pipe welding business landed a multimillion-dollar contract to help build a sprawling new Texas headquarters for Tesla, she was convinced it was her company’s big break.
Instead, she says the deal led her into personal and professional bankruptcy – unable to pay dozens of her workers at Christmastime. Meissner said that was her last resort after Tesla, which is owned by the world’s richest man, stopped paying her company for work they’d already done.
“They just don’t understand how many lives they completely trashed,” Meissner said. “Working with a company as big as (Tesla) is, you trust the fact they are going to pay their bills.”
As Musk has relied on small businesses to help him grow his multibillion-dollar empire, many contractors claim they were not paid – and at least two say they were forced into bankruptcy as a result, according to a CNN review of civil lawsuits and construction liens against companies including Tesla, SpaceX and X.
Even an attorney representing the carmaker in Meissner’s bankruptcy case acknowledged that Tesla has a habit of not promptly paying its bills.
