Elon Musk in 2005: SpaceX Cuts Costs by Using Regular Suppliers, Not ‘Magic’ Aerospace Vendors

Here's Elon Musk in 2005 explaining how SpaceX cuts costs by choosing regular commercial suppliers over specialized aerospace suppliers.

“Anyone outside the space business assumes rockets are made of magic. So if you tell [suppliers] it's for a rocket, they go like, well, I don't think I'm quite good enough to do something for a rocket. We tell them, no, it'll be fine.

Generally, we find as a principle that if you want something cheap, fast, and it's probably going to work, then you should use a regular commercial supplier. If you want something that's expensive, takes a long time, might work, use an aerospace supplier.”

National Space Society, May 20, 2005