[zpeti]

Because Elon is the product lead (and founder and owner), Shotwell does the business development.

Product is way more interesting in this case than BD, considering it's the most badass rockets ever made. But feel free to praise Shotwell too, that's great too.

[hef19898]

You really think Elon is anymore than Product Lead / Chief Engineer in title?

[simondotau]

Plenty of people with first-hand knowledge and/or their own independently earned reputations have attested to Musk being deeply knowledgeable and deeply involved in engineering at SpaceX. The evidence of his worthiness of the title is so plentiful that — absence some better information not in the public domain — casual doubt is wholly unjustified.

Of course as soon one says this, someone else will misconstrue this as some ridiculous claim that Musk is a singular genius responsible for inventing everything. This is of course silly. He's only one human with a limited schedule. There are surely thousands of things happening every day at SpaceX which he has zero involvement in.

As we often say in computing: ideas are easy, execution is everything. But the biggest successes of SpaceX weren't just about having ideas, they were about having the gumption to fund them, and an ability to recruit the best people so that execution is possible. In fields like rocketry, one might instead say ideas are easy, identifying when an idea should have a billion dollars thrown at it is hard, and execution is damn fucking hard.

[zpeti]

Yes. Please read any of the official comments about him by people who have worked with him, or just answers on Quora, or read the new biography. Or watch his actual comments and behavior on everyday astronaut interviews.

If 4 of those data points don’t convince you, you obviously don’t want to be convinced even in the slightest