Having read Eric Berger's Reentry about SpaceX and having a few friends who work at Tesla, my impression is that those organizations are not too dissimilar. They are also populated largely by millenial and gen Z people because older workers can't/won't deal with the hours and other working conditions.
Furthermore I think most blue collar American workers, and many white collar workers, are used to the concept of sudden and arbitrary termination.
That you are comparing Rickover's nuke program to Tesla and SpaceX kind of illustrates the cultural gap. Anyone at SpaceX ever get jailed for whatever reason his/her boss dreamed up off hand? Any analog to Skipjack at Tesla?
Think about that, today, Tesla and SpaceX are "tough" environments to people.
It's kind of a sign that a lot of people today have no idea how things worked back then. We will definitely have trouble bringing those environments back.
So why is the quality and reliability of Tesla products so bad compared to competitors? From an outside perspective it seems like Tesla engineers are generally lazy and incompetent, at least relative to an organization like Naval Reactors which maintains much higher standards.
They are not being tasked with making Toyota like reliability. That is not what made Tesla successful. Falcons are pretty reliable.
With that said, Musk went crazy a few years ago and people are just now starting to realize.
Furthermore I think most blue collar American workers, and many white collar workers, are used to the concept of sudden and arbitrary termination.