[Manabu-eo]

I don't know how B.S. and B.A. degrees work, but apparently that B.A. in physics was enough for him be accepted to a graduate program in materials science at Stanford University.

He also "held two internships in Silicon Valley: one at energy storage startup Pinnacle Research Institute, which investigated electrolytic supercapacitors for energy storage, and another at Palo Alto–based startup Rocket Science Games."[1] , has some software patents (software patents should be abolished) from his time at Zip2, and made and sold a simple game when he was twelve.

So he has a little experience working directly at the low level with his physics degree and coding knowledge, but of course it was not his talent in those that made him a billionaire, it might even have been the opposite. So there is indication for the "at all" but not on how talented. I guess one versed in BASIC can read the source of his game, but that was when he was twelve...

But yeah, nowadays he has thousands of engineers working under him, of course he is going to delegate. The the important thing is the system engineering, making sure the efforts are going in the right direction and well coordinated. He seems knowledgeable and talented enough at that. Evidence for SpaceX: https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/eviden...

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20191228213526/https://www.cnbc.... , https://fortune.com/longform/book-excerpt-paypal-founders-el...

[pqtyw]

> I don't know how B.S. and B.A. degrees work, but apparently that B.A. in physics was enough for him be accepted to a graduate program in materials science at Stanford University.

Is there any conclusive evidence either way? IIRC he allegedly got into graduate program 2 years before getting his 2 B.S. / B.A.?

[ein0p]

Don't let the facts get in the way of the "Musk is a midwit who just stumbles into founding trillion dollar companies" story. ;) It's an article of faith for these people.

[pqtyw]

I'm not sure how Musk not being anywhere close to being a talented engineer or scientist somehow diminishes his extreme success in other fields? That seems mostly orthogonal.

Having a PhD. or any field is relatively ordinary and not that impressive on the grand scale of thing. Founding several extremely successful tech/etc. companies is on a whole other level. Being a horrible software engineer (as his public action/communication on the topic would imply) seems entirely insignificant and hardly relevant when he has much more important things to do.

Of course other with comparable achievements (e.g. like Jobs who I don't think ever claimed that he was a talented engineer) weren't even as remotely insecure or narcissistic as him.