
Why Elon Musk is not an engineer - ryzvonusef
https://www.ietsism.net/why-elon-musk-is-not-an-engineer/
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mips_avatar
I really dislike gatekeeping on people calling themselves engineers. There’s a
very narrow case for certification for some civil engineering work. Other than
that I think it’s important to remember engineering started as a heroic
endeavor to build technology to lift people out of the struggles of the 19th
century with applied science. You’re an engineer if you choose to apply
science to make the world better.

~~~
woah
I’ll wager that he’s never driven a locomotive even once

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nabla9
>What engineer would Elon Musk be?

Elon Musk would be engineer in Industrial Engineering (sometimes Industrial
Engineering and Management). Industrial engineers do just the kind of jobs
Elon Musk does.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_engineering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_engineering)

Elon Musk has no formal engineering degree, but he clearly is industrial
engineer by profession. His approach to business and problem solving is
typical industrial engineering approach.

His actual degrees (BS in both economics and physics) have good overlap with
undergraduate curriculum in IE.

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carlosdp
> There is no evidence that Musk actually (partly) designed any of the
> creations his companies spawned.

That's not really true though. He's on several patents, and accounts from
people who work with him are that he spends a lot of time working on
engineering problems.

I don't think he's like working on sims or anything, but he seems to be pretty
involved in the high level engineering decisions and understand everything
that goes into his companies' products.

~~~
ulfw
That doesn't mean anything.

Here's the list of Steve Jobs 323 patents:

[http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/...](http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/24/technology/steve-
jobs-patents.html)

~~~
boxed
I think you are proving the opposite point you think you're proving ;)

~~~
ulfw
Wait. You think Steve Jobs was an engineer who came up with 300+ inventions?
Really now?

~~~
boxed
Inventions don't take engineers. Making the idea into reality takes engineers.

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Barrin92
Generally agree with the post and I think the proliferation of the engineering
term is somewhat problematic, because to a general audience it implies a sort
of rigor that isn't always present, see 'software engineer'.

I think Musk is a businessman but I'm not really sure if he's ever done actual
engineering work, and the title gives him a sort of undue authority when he
speaks on technical matters, for example his statements on the state of AI[1],
the progress of autonomous driving, or generally other fantastical statements.

It also takes attention away from the people who deserve it. Say, Tom Mueller
at SpaceX, who is responsible for a good amount of actual engineering work but
I figure most people haven't even heard of.

[1][https://twitter.com/an_open_mind/status/1260528928617369601?...](https://twitter.com/an_open_mind/status/1260528928617369601?s=20)

~~~
cvaidya1986
He did coding for Zip2

~~~
egsmi
That’s actually an interesting reply to the parent because, according to his
book, his work was not rigorous and all needed to be redone.

[https://www.quora.com/Did-Elon-Musk-write-any-code-at-X-
or-Z...](https://www.quora.com/Did-Elon-Musk-write-any-code-at-X-or-Zip2)

~~~
coralreef
Not sure what this shows evidence of.

I'd say its fairly ubiquitous that startups have bad code that get rewritten
upon scaling demands.

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smabie
> In my opinion however, an engineer is someone who has gone through years of
> training and has obtained a master’s degree in engineering.

So first, we assume Musk isn't an engineer in order to prove he isn't an
engineer? Who cares, the question is meaningless, much like this blog post.

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sanbor
Following that criteria then Nikola Tesla is not an engineer because he never
graduated from university[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#Early_years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#Early_years)

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TeeWEE
I think the writer wrote it because he thinks titles are important, and that
you have to earn it. Get some stamp of approval.

But in the real world titles don't matter that much. They are just a tool to
organize the world, to categorize.

In my opinion, if you start painting today. You're a painter. maybe not a good
one, but a painter nonetheless. Because you paint.

Don't focus on titles. focus on actions, on doing. making the world a better
place.

Titles don't matter in the end.

I think Elon Musk tackles problems from an technical point of view. First
principles. He identifies himself with an engineer. But in the end his actions
are what matter.

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Nomentatus
FWIW: "engineer" is a term that goes right back to Ancient Roman times, people
who could build or repair siege engines were "engineers." I'm pretty sure they
didn't have degrees for that, back then. Elon is not a "Professional Engineer"
(which is a term in law) and could be brought to court if he made that claim
in an ad in many countries. He is an engineer, as Tesla was.

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pmdulaney
"Why Elon Musk is not an engineer" is an ambiguous title. It could mean:

a. Why Elon Musk made a decision at some point not to become an engineer; or

b. Why I (the author of this post) do not consider Elon Musk to be an
engineer, despite what he claims for himself.

This post is all about option b.

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Toutouxc
My european bachelor's degree (three years in the Czech Republic) literally
says "software engineering" on it. We also use the czech equivalent "inženýr"
(Ing.) as the name for the master's degree.

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jasode
just a meta fyi... one can go to the wikipedia "talk" page for the Elon Musk
article and the topmost debate is the designation of _" engineer"_:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Elon_Musk#Rfc:_Musk_as_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Elon_Musk#Rfc:_Musk_as_an_engineer)

Do a Ctrl+F in your browser for _" engineer"_ and the highlights of that word
will light up the whole page like a Christmas tree.

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asguy
I’d love to know if the blogger is (themselves) a Masters wielding “Engineer”.
This argument was semi-recently dealt with in the Oregon courts. -
[https://reason.com/2019/01/02/judge-confirms-that-oregon-
eng...](https://reason.com/2019/01/02/judge-confirms-that-oregon-engineer-
has/)

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xt00
His undergrad was physics, and many engineers I’ve worked with started in
physics then spent 1.5-2 years doing a masters in mechanical or electrical or
aerospace engineering. So does Elon have the equivalent of 1.5-2 years of work
as say an aerospace engineer in the past 20 years? Yea I think so..

~~~
dharmon
Then I guess by this logic the CEO of Boeing (who has a degree in accounting)
is also an engineer?

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fsociety
Well did he do many years of engineering work? It’s perfectly valid to become
a chemical engineer, demonstrate knowledge in electrical engineering, and then
become an electrical engineer without a degree. This is an accepted path.

~~~
dharmon
I think this is the point of the article. Besides some coding a long time ago,
nobody has presented evidence that he's ever done actual engineering.

Do you think PMs should be able to call themselves engineers? They know the
work pretty well, many (at least in SV) have undergrad degrees in STEM, they
can talk the lingo. They've just never actually written code. Some people
would even protest PMs who used to be engineers still calling themselves that.

I think Musk knows things at the level of a technically-strong PM. But I think
if you asked him to some basic tasks in structural engineering, for instance,
he would have no idea what to do.

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darkcha0s
Another elitist gatekeeping the term engineer. Nothing to see here.

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tibbydudeza
That tweet of Elon regarding April and Covid did not age well.

