I agree, those people saying that Tesla and SpaceX are not a great experience to have in your resume, are pushing wishful thinking to new boundaries.

Hiring manager at big company: no cachet. One of the people in a team adjacent to mine got a job offer from SpaceX and rejected over perceptions of chaotic management.

That's not what is meant. The folks working at SpaceX work hard. The question is, when they look to slow down and go to another company, does having SpaceX on resume for 2-3 years vs widget maker X make it more or less likely to be hired.

The idea that spacex engineers are lazy / don't work hard etc is fanciful thinking. SpaceX being badly managed? Maybe true. But engineers at spacex? If you look at competitors like an engineer on the SLS project (which has taken 10-20 years to get to one 20B rocket launch) - no question who you'll want to hire if you are in "new space". I think for old space companies - probably still worth hiring SLS type folks just given that they will know how to deal with the paperwork of those jobs.

I would NEVER work for Tesla or SpaceX (work life balance way off). But neither would I claim they are lazy or poor engineers.

As a hiring manager I can say that SpaceX has very little cachet, but Telsa has some. At least not in the SW space. Maybe in areas more related to their domains they have more.

At my company, I promise you someone on my team would see the resume and shout "Holy shit this guy/gal worked at SpaceX!"

That doesn't differentiate between fame and infamy.

This. And everyone would stand up and clap.