May 13 Reuters SpaceX is building launch facilities, office buildings and even a shopping center in rural Texas, as billionaire Elon Musk39;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 fingerpointing among contractors, Reuters found, have led many constructionindustry 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 SpaceXrelated projects again. If they were to call me today, I39;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 company39;s development has taken place. Until about two weeks after Hydroz filed a lien last June months after it had performed the work SpaceX didn39;t pay its 19,214 bill.

We39;re not some hundredmilliondollar company, Rozelle said. It was hard on us.

SpaceX didn39;t respond to requests from Reuters for comment on the liens and complaints from subcontractors and suppliers.

Texas property records show that Hydroz is one of more than two dozen companies that have filed at least 72 liens since 2019 against sites developed by SpaceX…