> What's the difference in how SpaceX is run vs Musk's other companies?

One, this is his baby. I believe he spends more time at SpaceX than his other companies. Two, B2B. The public only sees breathtaking videos. The contract negotiations, sales process, pricing, support, insurance, et cetera happen behind the scenes. Finally, nothing has been on time. Years' delays don't feel that bad because (a) space is hard, (b) space is awesome and (c) everyone else going to space is even worse at keeping to timetables.

NYTimes article mentioned their initial target for a heavy rocket launch was 2013 due to being "naive." Safe to say SpaceX isn't all that different from Tesla or Solar City in that regard.

I think this is a big point. SpaceX has a solid business just with their Falcon 9 rockets. Delays to the Falcon Heavy really only impact them for payloads that require the bigger rocket and their overall R&D costs.

Landing and reusing the Falcon 9 cores is probably a much bigger benefit to their bottom line overall.

Tesla on the other hand has to be able to deliver tons of reliable cars to people all over the place in a competitive market. Delays to the Model 3 mean they're burning money they can't afford to lose while their competitors are rapidly catching up to them.

While SpaceX could continue their successful Falcon 9 launches during the 5 year delay on Falcon Heavy, Tesla will likely be gone in 5 years if Model 3 delays are even close to that long.

Yeah, it must be really hard on you that world changing, incredible technologies have unknowns and sometimes take longer than expected to deliver. You should let us all know how to do it right.