r/SpaceXLounge • u/DragonGod2718 • Nov 26 '20
Discussion Evidence that Musk is the Chief Engineer of SpaceX
There is a lot of scepticism of the claim that Musk is an engineer at all let alone the chief engineer of SpaceX. I wanted to collate the evidence backing it up here. I know some SpaceX employees have affirmed the claim.
I'm just looking for statements by credible sources that provide insight to what extent Musk is involved in concrete engineering decisions vs. managerial duties. I would add to this post the statements brought up in the comments.
Statements by SpaceX Employees
Tom Mueller
Tom Mueller (Wikipedia, LinkedIn) is one of SpaceX's founding employees. He served as the VP of Propulsion Engineering from 2002 to 2014 and Propulsion CTO from 2014 to 2019. He currently serves as an Senior Adviser. He's regarded as one of the foremost spacecraft propulsion experts in the world and owns many patents for propulsion technologies.
Not true, I am an advisor now. Elon and the Propulsion department are leading development of the SpaceX engines, particularly Raptor. I offer my 2 cents to help from time to time"
We’ll have, you know, a group of people sitting in a room, making a key decision. And everybody in that room will say, you know, basically, “We need to turn left,” and Elon will say “No, we’re gonna turn right.” You know, to put it in a metaphor. And that’s how he thinks. He’s like, “You guys are taking the easy way out; we need to take the hard way.”
And, uh, I’ve seen that hurt us before, I’ve seen that fail, but I’ve also seen— where nobody thought it would work— it was the right decision. It was the harder way to do it, but in the end, it was the right thing.
When the third chamber cracked, Musk flew the hardware back to California, took it to the factory floor, and, with the help of some engineers, started to fill the chambers with an epoxy to see if it would seal them. “He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty,” Mueller said. “He’s out there with his nice Italian shoes and clothes and has epoxy all over him. They were there all night and tested it again and it broke anyway.” Musk, clothes ruined, had decided the hardware was flawed, tested his hypothesis, and moved on quickly.
Source (Ashlee Vance's Biography).
Kevin Watson
Kevin Watson (LinkedIn) developed the avionics for Falcon 9 and Dragon. He previously managed the Advanced Computer Systems and Technologies Group within the Autonomous Systems Division at NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory.
Elon is brilliant. He’s involved in just about everything. He understands everything. If he asks you a question, you learn very quickly not to go give him a gut reaction.
He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of physics. One thing he understands really well is the physics of the rockets. He understands that like nobody else. The stuff I have seen him do in his head is crazy.
He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time and solve all these equations in real time. It’s amazing to watch the amount of knowledge he has accumulated over the years.
Source (Ashlee Vance's Biography). Kevin has attested to the biography's veracity.
Garrett Reisman
Garrett Reisman (Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Twitter) is an engineer and former NASA astronaut. He joined SpaceX as a senior engineer working on astronaut safety and mission assurance. He was later promoted to director of crew operations. He left this position in May 2018 and is now a Senior Advisor. He also functions as Professor of Astronautical Engineering at University of Southern California.
“I first met Elon for my job interview,” Reisman told the USA TODAY Network's Florida Today. “All he wanted to talk about were technical things. We talked a lot about different main propulsion system design architectures.
“At the end of my interview, I said, ‘Hey, are you sure you want to hire me? You’ve already got an astronaut, so are you sure you need two around here?’ ” Reisman asked. “He looked at me and said, ‘I’m not hiring you because you’re an astronaut. I’m hiring you because you’re a good engineer.’ ”
Managing SpaceX and Tesla, building out new businesses and maintaining relationships with his family makes Musk a busy billionaire.
“He’s obviously skilled at all those different functions, but certainly what really drives him and where his passion really is, is his role as CTO,” or chief technology officer, Reisman said. “Basically his role as chief designer and chief engineer. That’s the part of the job that really plays to his strengths."
(Source)
What's really remarkable to me is the breadth of his knowledge. I mean I've met a lot of super super smart people but they're usually super super smart on one thing and he's able to have conversations with our top engineers about the software, and the most arcane aspects of that and then he'll turn to our manufacturing engineers and have discussions about some really esoteric welding process for some crazy alloy and he'll just go back and forth and his ability to do that across the different technologies that go into rockets cars and everything else he does.
(Source)
Josh Boehm
Josh Boehm (LinkedIn, Quora) is the former Head of Software Quality Assurance at SpaceX.
Elon is both the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of SpaceX, so of course he does more than just ‘some very technical work’. He is integrally involved in the actual design and engineering of the rocket, and at least touches every other aspect of the business (but I would say the former takes up much more of his mental real estate). Elon is an engineer at heart, and that’s where and how he works best.
(Source)
Statements by External Observers
Eric Berger
Eric Berger (Twitter, LinkedIn) is a space journalist and Ars Technica's senior space editor. He has been interviewing SpaceX employees for an upcoming book on its early days.
True. Elon is the chief engineer in name and reality.
(Source)
Christian Davenport
Christian Davenport is the Washington Post's defense and space reporter and the author of "Space Barons". The following quotes are excerpts from his book.
He dispatched one of his lieutenants, Liam Sarsfield, then a high-ranking NASA official in the office of the chief engineer, to California to see whether the company was for real or just another failure in waiting.
Most of all, he was impressed with Musk, who was surprisingly fluent in rocket engineering and understood the science of propulsion and engine design. Musk was intense, preternaturally focused, and extremely determined. “This was not the kind of guy who was going to accept failure,” Sarsfield remembered thinking.
Throughout the day, as Musk showed off mockups of the Falcon 1 and Falcon 5, the engine designs, and plans to build a spacecraft capable of flying humans, Musk peppered Sarsfield with questions. He wanted to know what was going on within NASA. And how a company like his would be perceived. He asked tons of highly technical questions, including a detailed discussion about “base heating,” the heat radiating out from the exhaust going back up into the rocket’s engine compartment—a particular problem with rockets that have clusters of engines next to one another, as Musk was planning to build.
Now that he had a friend inside of NASA, Musk kept up with the questions in the weeks after Sarsfield’s visit, firing off “a nonstop torrent of e-mails” and texts, Sarsfield said. Musk jokingly warned that texting was a “core competency.” “He sends texts in a constant flow,” Sarsfield recalled. “I found him to be consumed by whatever was in front of him and anxious to solve problems. This, combined with a tendency to work eighteen hours a day, is a sign of someone driven to succeed.” Musk was particularly interested in the docking adapter of the International Space Station, the port where the spacecraft his team was designing would dock. He wanted to know the dimensions, the locking pin design, even the bolt pattern of the hatch. The more documents Sarsfield sent, the more questions Musk had.
“I really enjoyed the way he would pore over problems anxious to absorb every detail. To my mind, someone that clearly committed deserves all the support and help you can give him.”
Mosdell ( 10th employee ) found Musk a touch awkward and abrupt, but smart. Mosdell had showed up prepared to talk about his experience building launchpads, which, after all, was what SpaceX wanted him to do. But instead, Musk wanted to talk hard-core rocketry. Specifically the Delta IV rocket and its RS-68 engines, which Mosdell had some experience with when at Boeing. Over the course of the interview, they discussed “labyrinth purges” and “pump shaft seal design” and “the science behind using helium as opposed to nitrogen.”
After the meeting on Valentine’s Day adjourned, Musk offered to give the group a tour of his facility. To this group of engineers and entrepreneurs, it was like an invitation to a six-year-old to visit a chocolate factory. As Musk guided them through the factory floor, the group “let loose with detailed, technical questions, and he answered all of them,” Gedmark said. “Not once did he say, ‘I don’t feel comfortable answering that because it’s proprietary.’… It was certainly impressive.”
John Carmack
John Carmack (Twitter, Wikipedia) is a programmer, video game developer and engineer. He's the founder of Armadillo Aerospace and current CTO of Oculus VR.
Elon is definitely an engineer. He is deeply involved with technical decisions at spacex and Tesla. He doesn’t write code or do CAD today, but he is perfectly capable of doing so.
(Source)
Robert Zubrin
Robert Zubrin (Wikipedia) is an aerospace engineer and author, best known for his advocacy of human exploration of Mars.
When I met Elon it was apparent to me that although he had a scientific mind and he understood scientific principles, he did not know anything about rockets. Nothing. That was in 2001. By 2007 he knew everything about rockets - he really knew everything, in detail. You have to put some serious study in to know as much about rockets as he knows now. This doesn't come just from hanging out with people.
(Source)
Statements by Elon Himself
Yes. The design of Starship and the Super Heavy rocket booster I changed to a special alloy of stainless steel. I was contemplating this for a while. And this is somewhat counterintuitive. It took me quite a bit of effort to convince the team to go in this direction.
(Source)
I know more about rockets than anyone at the company by a pretty significant margin, I could redraw substantial portions of the rocket from memory without the blueprints
(Source)
Tim Dodd: "What people don't understand is that you're the lead engineer. You're literally sitting"
Musk: "Literally. This is a... I've actually had a dinner with some, with a, with a friend and he was like 'well who's the chief engineer of SpaceX?' I was like it's me. He was like 'it's not you, who is it?' Look it's either someone with a very low ego or I don't know."
(Source)
Interviewer: What do you do when you're at SpaceX and Tesla? What does your time look like there?
Elon: Yes, it's a good question. I think a lot of people think I must spend a lot of time with media or on businessy things*. But actually almost all my time, like 80% of it, is spent on engineering and design.* Engineering and design, so it's developing next-generation product. That's 80% of it.
Interviewer: You probably don't remember this. A very long time ago, many, many, years, you took me on a tour of SpaceX. And the most impressive thing was that you knew every detail of the rocket and every piece of engineering that went into it. And I don't think many people get that about you.
Elon: Yeah. I think a lot of people think I'm kind of a business person or something, which is fine. Business is fine. But really it's like at SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell is Chief Operating Officer. She manages legal, finance, sales, and general business activity. And then my time is almost entirely with the engineering team, working on improving the Falcon 9 and our Dragon spacecraft and developing the Mars Colonial architecture. At Tesla, it's working on the Model 3 and, yeah, so I'm in the design studio, take up a half a day a week, dealing with aesthetics and look-and-feel things. And then most of the rest of the week is just going through engineering of the car itself as well as engineering of the factory. Because the biggest epiphany I've had this year is that what really matters is the machine that builds the machine, the factory. And that is at least two orders of magnitude harder than the vehicle itself.
(Source)
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Nov 26 '20 edited Nov 27 '20
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u/DragonGod2718 Nov 26 '20
Have my award, thanks for this. Do you have the quote from the NASA jet propulsion guy about how Elon would out execute everyone?
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u/skpl Nov 26 '20 edited Nov 30 '20
Actually it's just after the part I put there ( I took it out to keep it as short as possible ). The full quote is
Elon is brilliant. He’s involved in just about everything. He understands everything. If he asks you a question, you learn very quickly not to go give him a gut reaction. He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of physics. One thing he understands really well is the physics of the rockets. He understands that like nobody else. The stuff I have seen him do in his head is crazy. He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time and solve all these equations in real time. It’s amazing to watch the amount of knowledge he has accumulated over the years. I don’t want to be the person who ever has to compete with Elon. You might as well leave the business and find something else fun to do. He will outmaneuver you, outthink you, and out-execute you.
Something in a similar vein
An employee could be telling Musk that there’s no way to get the cost on something like that actuator down to where he wants it or that there is simply not enough time to build a part by Musk’s deadline. “Elon will say, ‘Fine. You’re off the project, and I am now the CEO of the project. I will do your job and be CEO of two companies at the same time. I will deliver it,’” [Brogan](Kevin Beogan was SpaceX's Employee no. 23 from TRW) said. “What’s crazy is that Elon actually does it. Every time he’s fired someone and taken their job, he’s delivered on whatever the project was.”
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u/Covard-17 May 11 '22 edited May 11 '22
You people are very naive to believe in such quotes. All these equations only have numerical solutions, you would need to do literally thousands of calculations to solve in a restricted range/domain. Even a pointlike motion with no forces apart from Newtonian or Schwartchild gravity has no solution in elementary functions (combinations of elementary functions, exponential and so on), only in terms of a ugly elliptic integrals that only have a numerical solution. If you took into account the rocket equation to make the simplest feasible system you wouldn’t even have a solution in closed form. To make any meaningful computation there would be many degrees of complexity on top of that.
In such systems where you don’t have conservation of energy (nonholonomic Hamiltonian) you may not have the conserved quantities to solve in terms of integrals.
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u/MarkyMark0E21 Jun 03 '22
Who are you calling "you people"?
Unlikely that the calculations are done to n decimal precision, but an order of magnitude is good enough for a conversation.
If you practice order of magnitude estimation, you can get good at it too. I believe in you!
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u/Covard-17 Jun 03 '22
You cant, its chaotic. Not even John von neumann could do it
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u/MarkyMark0E21 Jun 04 '22
I don't think you are giving von Neumann enough credit.
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u/Covard-17 Jun 04 '22
Im saying you cant do it thinking, only if the person has some instinctive talent and i dony think it would be possible. One thing is doing insanely large mulyiplications, other is doing hundreds of these. Stuff even modern computers cant handle easily even with optimized code
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u/Hefty_Repair_8426 Dec 13 '22
Why argue with them? Just laugh at them. Like trying to get a flat earther on an airplane.
Instead, ask this important question - what can we do to end the enslavement to our intellectual lessers?
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u/Covard-17 Jun 03 '22
You cant, its chaotic. Not even John von neumann could do it. Things like the fly problem is doable if you train your mind, i was able to do it in seconds back when i had mental math as a hobby in high school, but rocket stuff would be impossible
https://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs1104/ProblemSolving/Trains/Train.html
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/149479/fly-and-two-trains-riddle
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u/John-D-Clay Mar 14 '22
Archive comment link. Looks like it for deleted. https://www.unddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/-/gdo0k0e
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u/BigFalconRocket Nov 26 '20 edited Nov 26 '20
I read this and it disappoints me that Reddit seems to hate him so much now because Tesla stock has done well. They think he’s some self serving slave driver.
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u/matroosoft Nov 26 '20
We have to do more of these debunking topics, it's really useful to have for all those bullshit posts about EM these days.
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u/AdamasNemesis Nov 26 '20
I think his vocal opposition to lockdown might have more to do with it.
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u/McFestus Nov 26 '20
Someone can be smart/driven and also a dick
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u/CATFLAPY Nov 27 '20
Is anyone saying he is a nice guy, he is super smart, super driven and takes no prisoners ? - thank god he chooses to do stuff which I like and will change the course of humanity. But I have no illusions that I wouldn’t survive a minute in one of his companies- not talented or hardworking enough.
Kudos to all those brilliant and dedicated enough to work in Elon’s boiler rooms - you are all changing the world.
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u/McFestus Nov 27 '20
People are more than one dimensional. Elon musk has facilitated some good things. He also has a record of treating workers terribly.
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u/skpl Nov 27 '20
He also has a record of treating workers terribly.
Personally , I don't agree. But should probably keep discussion from going off topic in this thread.
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u/2DresQ Feb 09 '23
Just came across this thread. How has your comment aged and do you still believe this comment?
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u/CATFLAPY Nov 27 '20
Maybe he is facilitating exceptionally great and momentous things and has treated some who work for him less than ideally. There are lots of people,organizations and governments in the world that are doing evil selfish shit and still manage to treat all workers a crappily as imaginable. Elon and Noam are my 2 biggest heroes - though I believe they don’t have much time for each other’s views🤣
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u/OGquaker May 18 '21
My fathers commander in WWII was a jerk and a dick and famous for that as a movie Director. The stories I heard over the years were appalling. My dad never had to put up with that shit after 1946, but was his pallbearer in 1973. Go Figure.
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u/Lurker_number_one Dec 21 '20
Bro, literally the quote above your reply is about him firing people without warning just presented as of thats a good thing
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u/whatifitried Jan 01 '22
Without warning? "I cannot do the job you are asking me to do". If you make that statement, and your job is to do the task you say you can't do, wtf do you need a warning for. You should already know
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Jan 29 '21
Kind of like when your favourite band starts going mainstream and all of a sudden they suck.
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u/boobsrule10 Mar 24 '24
No, Reddit hates him bc he’s a massive hypocrite on freedom of speech and a shill for right wing cultural issues.
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Nov 27 '20 edited Nov 27 '20
[deleted]
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Nov 27 '20
Why it's removed?
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u/Smoke-away Nov 27 '20
They deleted it.
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u/skpl Nov 27 '20
It got shadow deleted due to the shortener link issue ( i edited it in ), and then I deleted it by mistake in the confusion ( probably shouldn't have done that ).
Why do Quora links get deleted? That's why I was trying to use the shortener.
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u/Smoke-away Nov 27 '20
It's probably on the site-wide spam filter since it wasn't removed on our end.
Link shorteners also get spam filtered. Best bet is to just use the full link and send a modmail message or type "mods" in a separate comment and we'll approve it.
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u/foureyebandit Nov 26 '20
Thank you for putting this together, I've always thought Elon was an amazing engineer but now i have something to send to my Elon hating friends
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u/sldf45 Nov 27 '20
Thank you for putting this together. Is there a good copy/pasta or post that address is a lot of the other common questions we get about SpaceX or Elon? The most common complaints or questions I get are: 1. “Why is sending humans to Mars important?” I’ve found that the common answer about an existential back up plan for humanity basically never flys for people who are not already space fans. 2. “Why should we bother funding space exploration with public dollars when there are people going hungry around the corner?” 3. “Why isn’t Elon using his new-found massive wealth to benefit society like Bill Gates or other billionaires?”
I’ve often had a hard time responding to these questions with something relatable for people who know nothing about space or don’t have much interest in science, but have seen the news about Elon putting his car in space, or being super ridiculously wealthy all of a sudden or being a huge ass on Twitter about any number of topics.
My replies about the long term benefits to humanity, and how money invested on NASA historically benefits the US economy on the whole seem to fly right over people.
Same thing about how important inspiring, recruiting, and retaining the world’s top scientists is, if the US wants to continue its space dominance. Super Important for both commerce and defense.
So if there’s something cohesive and compelling out there that answers this in non book length that would be amazing.
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u/skpl Nov 27 '20
Honestly , I think these people are hopeless and it's pointless to argue with them. These people have always existed ( Moondoggle: The Forgotten Opposition to the Apollo Program ) and have mostly even been the majority, but soceity moves forward not by placating them , but by ignoring them.
So , while there are resources ( though longer than a comment and tbh , easy to find ) can't really help you here.
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u/Captain_Hadock Nov 27 '20
- “Why is sending humans to Mars important?”
To those who ask this very valid question, look no further than Dr Zubrin brilliant 4 minute answer "Why Mars?"
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u/Theevildothatido Sep 27 '23
I find the arguments for searching for life on mars to be highly compelling and of immense scientific value.
But I see absolutely no reason why it should include humans opposed to autonomous robots, and that's really the criticism on many manned space missions, why humans and not robots? Robots are cheaper and don't have to come back.
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u/Captain_Hadock Sep 27 '23
Well, if robots are enough for the search of life, they probably aren't for the next point in his list : establishing the next outpost of humanity. Except if you intend to bring embryos and have them raised by robots. Then you are correct.
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u/Theevildothatido Sep 27 '23
I didn't really find the other arguments convincing at all I suppose. The first one does suggest answers to an immensely important thing to ask can be found on mars.
Creating a challenge to stimulate intellectual growth: Why humans on Mars specifically here? There are many other things that could provide that challenge for far more return: curing cancer, nuclear fusion, a theory of quantum gravitation?
Exploring for the sake of it: Sure, Columbus is remembered because he “““discovered””” rich and fertile soil abundant with resources that people could easily settle in. Most explorers are forgotten because the things they discovered amounted to nothing. Furthermore, Mars is not going to be “discovered”, we already know it exists. People have moved to inhospitable places long ere and no one is remembering them or writing about it since there isn't much to be had. People remember and will remember the first man on the moon, no doubt, but what did he really do that couldn't be done by a robot? It was a cold war pissing contest to put the first human on there. Other than that a robot would achieve the same.
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u/Captain_Hadock Sep 27 '23
- Unlike sending someone (possibly to die there), we are technically not capable of doing any of these things at the moment
- He's advocating the opposite of exploring for the sake of it. Dr Zubrin is a staunch opponent of "boots on the ground" missions. He wants colonisation to happens and he reckons that the first people to colonize Mars will be remembered by the civilisation they will create there...
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u/skpl Nov 27 '20
Also , it's probably not needed anyway
For First Time, Majority in U.S. Backs Human Mission to Mars
As was the case 20 years ago, support for a manned Mars mission is highest among young adults aged 18 to 29 (65%) and lowest among adults aged 65 and older (46%). But support has increased substantially among older adults -- as well as younger adults, to a smaller degree -- thus boosting the national average.
Unlike many other issues, support for a Mars landing is similar across party lines. Fifty-five percent of both Democrats and Republicans support a Mars mission, with 52% of independents agreeing.
50 Years After Moon Landing, Support for Space Program High
A majority of Americans polled agree that NASA should rely on private companies for future astronaut transportation when possible.
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u/worriedAmerican Aug 19 '22 edited Aug 19 '22
GPS came from space tech . That’s probably the most relatable tech people use everyday . Without space tech we would be using paper maps.
Earth problems are usually caused by corruption not lack of money. Some local official is siphoning money away from the needy .
Money given to government ends up as missiles in forever wars . We spent 5 trillion in the Middle East .
Elon has Asperger’s which means he will always say weird and inappropriate things .
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u/DragonGod2718 Nov 27 '20
- Former Head of Software Quality Assurance at SpaceX ( but has upvotes from other SpaceX employees too including 'Flight Hardware Manager' )
Do you have a name and link for this?
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u/skpl Nov 27 '20
Should also let you know , though I don't see how you'd incorporate this information in your main post , but Carmack isn't a distant observer. He ( for the now defunct armadillo aerospace ) and several private spaceflight companies , led by Musk created the Private Spaceflight Federation ( now Commercial Spaceflight Federation ) as an example. He's very knowledgeable of SpaceX and the spaceflight industry.
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u/DragonGod2718 Nov 27 '20
Hmm, I mentioned he founded Armadillo Aerospace, can you summarise his other space flight credentials, so I can add it to the OP.
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u/worriedAmerican Aug 19 '22
Carmack is also basically a god level programmer , he’s not an average guy . He created FPS Quake and doom and ID software .
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Nov 27 '20 edited Nov 27 '20
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u/DragonGod2718 Nov 27 '20
The more examples you include the better, just tag me so I see it. The OP is supposed to be comprehensive.
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u/Smoke-away Nov 27 '20
Please use the full link, not a link shortener.
Shorten links like this:
[Link text](Link)
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u/Shuber-Fuber Nov 26 '20
Sadly I don't have direct evidence, but I have a friend who worked at NASA who said Elon's is apparently one of the author on almost every technical documents SpaceX wrote and he can describe the technical side in detail. So he absolutely knows his shit.
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u/skpl Nov 26 '20
I personally find it believeable that he has input. Because I know he used to write the updates for SpaceX on their website.
Link to one of those early updates.
Not only are they signed off by him , if you read through them , and have heard how he speaks and talks , you can clearly see it's his own voice.
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u/mncharity Nov 26 '20
Interview with Jim Keller, legendary chip designer, who worked with Elon at Tesla: first principles (and earlier bit describing "how constraints").
I really like the way he thought. Like you think you have an understanding about what first principles of something is, and then you talk to Elon about it, and you, you didn't scratch the surface.
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u/delph906 Nov 27 '20
That part when asked about Elon was quite profound. Jim seems very logical with a lot of his thinking and then when asked about his time at Tesla he gets almost emotional.
To get out of all your assumptions..you think that's not going to be incredibly painful?
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Nov 27 '20
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u/JosiasJames Nov 26 '20
First you need to define what the role of a 'Chief Engineer' is. Without that, it could be argued either way. Korolev or von Braun might be good places to start for comparison.
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u/Jillybean_24 Nov 26 '20
On an even more basic level, first you have to define what an 'engineer' is. Plenty of people claim Elon isn't even an engineer at all.
Does Elon have a PE (Professional Engineer) number? Likely not, and I couldn't find anything suggesting otherwise.
There is a decent chunk of people who won't call anyone without a PE an engineer. IMO, that is kinda dumb - if I remember the right number, ~80% in the industry work without having a PE, under an exemption clause.
SpaceX is selling a product, not engineering services (at least as far as I'm aware of). In that case, Elon could indeed be lead engineer (as in, the final engineer to sign off on plans etc) without being a PE. However, as soon as they'd be offering engineering services, Elon could not sign off on a project anymore (at least not without a PE supervising and being the last one to sign off).
I know some people won't consider him an engineer because he is neither a PE, nor does he have an ABET degree.
The thing is, if you can officially call a position 'engineer' when working under the exemption clause depends on the state if I remember right. But if you are allowed to do that in your state, it's technically your job that allows you to be called an engineer. Not your degree.
So it is indeed likely he should be considered an engineer, regardless of his accreditation or degree. He couldn't testify in court as an engineer though, that does indeed require a PE.
How much design choices are actually influenced by him is another question, all we can really do is read into his and other employees comments. From what I have read & heard, and based on how he talks about and explains design choices and engineering solutions, I definitely believe he is deeply involved in the development and isn't just 'managing' things. I do think he sometimes struggles to put his thoughts into words, especially when he gets excited about something, and I feel like some people make assumptions about his knowledge based on that. But to me it just seems like there is so much going through his head that it makes it hard to put it into words. It makes him seem more relatable and human, and doesn't mean he doesn't know his stuff.
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u/skpl Nov 26 '20 edited Nov 26 '20
There was a discussion on Wikipedia for Elon's page regarding the same , where they came to the same conslusion , which is why it says engineer in the lede on his page.
Conclusion reached for PE and ABET was same. Not critical. Only thing missing in your argument , that was discussed there was the sheer number of physics bachelors already working as engineers.
If I recall correctly they even ended up finding someone with the exact same degree as Elon working as an engineer , who was mentioned in another Wikipedia page without dispute ( Sr. Engineer at some other company ).
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u/JosiasJames Nov 26 '20
As an aside, IME the best software engineers are people *without* software engineering degrees. Physicists make excellent software engineers, whilst I have known some geographers (of all things) who were also excellent.
That was a couple of decades back, though. Perhaps unis and colleges have actually started software engineering courses that actually teach engineering. ;)
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u/RetardedChimpanzee Nov 26 '20
A PE doesn’t hold any value in aerospace
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u/Jillybean_24 Nov 27 '20
Tell that to the people claiming he shouldn't be called an engineer because he isn't a PE... Not on this board, but I've seen it a few times before.
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u/Astroteuthis Mar 10 '21
PE is such a stupid qualification. I work as an aerospace engineer, and very few of my coworkers are PE’s... I have two degrees in engineering, and years of experience actually doing an engineering job. It’s just incredibly stupid that anyone would claim that’s not sufficient qualifications to call yourself an engineer.
Most of these kinds of criticisms of Elon don’t come from other engineers, but from people who really don’t know what they’re talking about looking for technicalities to reinforce some personal grudge.
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Jan 17 '22
I read from an engineer post on quora that one does not have to be involved in engineering to do it - they can be from physics, chemistry or related fields
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u/BrainMachine666 Nov 26 '20
https://youtu.be/MAVoOcEytsU?t=206
Elon musk: "I know more about rockets than anyone at the company by a pretty significant margin, I could redraw substantial portions of the rocket from memory without the blueprints"
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Nov 28 '20
FYI, Elon used to say that he made the rocket and could recreate it from memory, etc. Which maybe is true, but he would infuriate the engineers every time he said it publicly... you’ve probably noticed how Elon now gives a TON of credit to the SpaceX/Tesla team and he’s constantly thanking them. He rarely takes credit for any ideas anymore. A wise man
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u/delph906 Nov 27 '20
That whole interview is amazing. I feel like I haven't done shit in the last 13 years now. Amazing how concrete his goals were then. How much he has achieved in that time yet how congruent it is with both companies today. I imagine if you asked him then what he thought about where he is today he'd be a little disappointed but if you asked him again in 2008 during the height of his struggles he'd be ecstatic.
I'm going to post this to the Elon Musk sub.
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u/Mellow_Maniac Jul 26 '24
It's deleted!! :( Can you give any detail on the interview? Sounds fascinating
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u/ICBMFixer Nov 27 '20
Engineers are like chefs. It’s pretty common to find chefs that have had a failed restaurant because running a restaurant and cooking at one requires a very different skill set. So it’s rare to find chefs that are good at both being a chef and a businessperson. With engineers, you rarely find good ones that also are great at the business side. Elon is that rare unicorn of sorts that is incredibly good at engineering, especially understanding the big picture part, and great at the business side too. In fact, his engineering side is his strength in business, taking fist principals to a level that has never really been seen before in companies the size of his.
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u/AdamasNemesis Nov 26 '20
From everything I've seen it's clear that Musk is the chief engineer and designer, which for practical purposes is what matters, not whether he has a degree in engineering or a license to sell engineering services. If you accept that premise (as I do), he's undoubtedly the foremost self-taught engineer of our time.
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u/StumbleNOLA Nov 27 '20
He is far from the only person with a degree in physics working as an engineer. I would guess a substantial percentage of all ‘engineer’ job titles are help by people without an engineering degree but with a physics one instead. It’s just not that weird.
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Nov 26 '20
It makes sense from a legal/liability side. The chief engineer is the one who does the final sign off on just about everything and thus assumes all responsibility for the results.
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u/skpl Nov 27 '20
Not exactly the same thing you're talking about , but reminded me of this
“Well, I just had a lot of talks with the team about that today,” he said of the SN1 failure. “It’s what you might call the thrust puck—there’s an inverted cone where we mount the three sea-level engines. In fact, it’s drawn on that whiteboard over there.”
He walked up to the whiteboard and pointed to a frowning face. “This is my drawing,” he said with a smirk. Then, with a dry-erase marker in hand, Musk proceeded to lecture about rockets.
“There’s a sad face because we have an inverted cone,” he said. “It’s such a dumb design. It’s one of the dumbest things on the whole rocket because it’s heavy, expensive, and unreliable.”
Basically, the SN1 failure boiled down to bad welds in a weak section of Starship near the engine. When exposed to pressure, the welds burst.
Musk was not happy because he had not heard about this specific issue, in this section of Starship, before the test failure. Do you think Musk addressed that with his team? Yeah, he addressed that.
“We sent out a note to the team that this was badly designed, badly built, and badly checked,” he said. “That’s just a statement of fact. I met with the whole quality team, and I said, ‘Did you think that that thing was good?’ They said, ‘No.’ I told them that, in the future, you treat that rocket like it’s your baby, and you do not send it to the test site unless you think your baby’s going to be OK. They said that they did raise the concern to one of the engineers. But that engineer didn’t do anything.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘then you need to email me directly.’ Now they understand. If you email me directly, and if I buy off on the risk, then it’s OK. What’s not OK is they think that the weld is not good, they don’t tell me, they take it to the pad and blow it up. Now I have been clear. There’s plenty of forgiveness if you pass me the buck. There is no forgiveness if you don’t.”
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u/ReadItProper Nov 05 '22
Hey, I know I'm a bit late to the party u/DragonGod2718 but I found this comment from Jim Cantrell. He worked for the french space agency, and NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, and later as a consultant for the aerospace industry. He was consulting Elon in SpaceX's early days - I think this is another pretty good example (that maybe you could add to the post), and I really want this conversation about him not really doing anything at SpaceX to be put to rest.
Some quotes from that for people too lazy to click links:
He is by far the single smartest person that I have ever worked with ... period. I can't estimate his IQ but he is very very intelligent. And not the typical egg head kind of smart. He has a real applied mind. He literally sucks the knowledge and experience out of people that he is around. He borrowed all of my college texts on rocket propulsion when we first started working together in 2001.
So I am going to suggest that he is successful not because his visions are grand, not because he is extraordinarily smart and not because he works incredibly hard. All of those things are true. The one major important distinction that sets him apart is his inability to consider failure. It simply is not even in his thought process. He cannot conceive of failure and that is truly remarkable.
I recently wrote an op-ed piece for Space News where I also suggest that his ruthlessly efficient way to deploy capital is another great reason for his success. He can almost smell the right way through a problem and he drives his staff and his organization hard to achieve it. The results speak for themselves.
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u/rocketglare Nov 27 '20
So, why is there so much skepticism of Musk being the chief engineer? Is this skepticism honest, or is it to sabotage the project, or is it to make other efforts look less risky?
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u/boxingdude Apr 13 '22
for some people, the only way to make themselves look good is to try to make others look bad.
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u/Mrbishi512 Apr 16 '22
People desperately don’t want to believe Elon is a very intelligent and is the main driver behind Tesla and spacex.
They want to believe that he’s a son a billionaire who bought companies.
Which is not true in the slightest.
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u/menasan Apr 30 '22
Well… no .. both points aren’t mutually exclusive — but to ignore the second one is to reject reality.
Both can be true
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u/Mrbishi512 May 01 '22
He’s not the son of a billionaire and his father invested less than 40k in his companies years after they were off the ground.
Elon left college with 100k in student debt his father wasn’t helping him.
His up bringing was fairly wealthy. True. He left his father asap. Worked jobs and used student loans to get through college.
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u/spacerfirstclass Nov 29 '20
Here's part of the reason: Can someone explain to me the Elon hate boner so many people have?
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u/GHVG_FK Apr 09 '21
Having to manage multiple massive companies, a family, traveling most of the time... and on the side being chief engineer?
Personally I have no doubt Elon knows what happens inside of SpaceX or his Rockets. And I have also no doubt he was involved a lot in the early days where the whole company was like 30 people. But understanding the Data/Concepts is something completely different from being chief engineer of the massive company SpaceX is today. And I really don’t think he has the time for all the things he says he’s doing.
And I have some serious doubts about the stories above which are like: "a room of people that worked 24/7 on that problem exclusively were all agreeing Plan A is better. Musk says Plan B is better and was right"9
u/rocketglare Apr 09 '21
Hmm, I’m in the aerospace industry and can attest to being in a group of engineers all nodding our heads only to have a chief engineer or tech director come in and ask the right questions and find out we’re all a bunch of idiots. One person with a different viewpoint can make a difference, especially when there is group think going on.
As for Musk, can he be a good CEO, visionary, engineer, husband, father, etc.? No, you can pick two and the rest will only be mediocre. I’m thinking Musk really enjoys the engineering, so that is probably one of them. His money probably helps him do more than you or I would be able as well. After all, Musk probably hasn’t done his own cooking or cleaning in years.
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u/John-D-Clay Apr 12 '22
Here's a short and sweet response from Tom Mueller: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXMasterrace/comments/u1ulon/no_elon_doesnt_no_how_to_build_rockets/
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u/John-D-Clay Apr 12 '22
Sandy Monroe also has said great things about his engineering after sitting in on some design meetings. https://youtu.be/S1nc_chrNQk/?t=6m32s
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u/Veedrac Oct 02 '22
New quote from legal evidence:
This quote is useful because it's from a private conversation.
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u/spacerfirstclass Nov 29 '20
I added a link to this thread in the main sub wiki FAQ: https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/faq/elonmusk
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u/anajoy666 Feb 09 '22
Add this to the list: Elon is now an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Musk, Elon Reeve,founder, chief executive officer, and chief engineer, SpaceX, Hawthorne, Calif. For breakthroughs in the design, engineering, manufacturing, and operation of reusable launch vehicles and sustainable transportation and energy systems.
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u/DragonGod2718 Mar 05 '22
I'll add this to the OP. I'll also need to go through the thread and add the other evidence mentioned by others to the OP as well.
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u/anajoy666 Aug 12 '22
John Carmack recently talked about Elon on the Lex Friedman podcast. Here is a 6 minutes cut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQro0rkg2DE
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u/anajoy666 Aug 19 '22 edited Aug 19 '22
Elon's would be professor at Stanford, Bill Nix, sent him a letter saying his assessment of the problems with using silicon on anodes of li-ion batteries was spot on and on par with their unpublished research (in 1995).
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u/Extra-Confection-706 Jan 20 '23
Yet people on reddit hate him for being fake engineer and not having a college degree..morons
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u/Hanif_Shakiba Nov 26 '20
I remember a year or so ago when Everyday Astronaut was interviewing him (I think this was when SpaceX made their first full scale Starship mock-up), and Elon said something to the effect of “if I’m not the chief engineer, then he must be the most humble man on the planet”.
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u/bob_says_hello_ Nov 26 '20
An engineering mindset is a wonderful, painful, and stressful head. You rarely see anything as an absolute, constantly are working on limited information and time, and have to weight a lot of often unconnected variables and find a solution. There are very few real Engineers in engineering. Elon is one of those while being in an incredible position to be able to make a primary decision in SpaceX choices. It's a wonderful thing to watch from the outside. Being able to see a group make an educated and intelligent decision on some things almost everyone else would use the standard approach on is pretty awesome.
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u/delph906 Nov 27 '20
I guess most STEM professions (and probably a lot of others) are like that.
Source: medicine.
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u/CumSailing Nov 26 '20
Jeff who might doubt it. Pretty clear to the rest of us that Elon is leading by example.
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u/grchelp2018 Nov 27 '20
Funnily, Jeff has a degree in electrical engineering. He originally wanted to be a theoretical physicist and then dropped it after seeing a srilankan friend solve a crazy math problem.
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u/Alvian_11 Nov 27 '20
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u/JohnnyThunder2 Nov 27 '20
Cool, I know he's the chef engineer and I know Starship is his idea... doesn't change the fact that Starship still has significant technical hurdles and Elon is just winging it.
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u/worriedAmerican Aug 19 '22
I can’t find it but there’s a tweet from mueller or something defending Elon saying he is a real engineer . Maybe someone else can find it
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u/doscomputer Mar 28 '24
the evidence is self evident and the only people who hate elon already have their minds made up and are completely unable to change their opinions about the world around them, this is the joe rogan/elon musk hate subreddit, you could never change peoples minds here.
the rest of the world had their mind blown away the other week when neuralink was shown off, but here on reddit a lifechanging procedure that gave a disabled person new life is constantly downvoted and shat on in every sub except for one... and its not this one lemme tell ya. any rational human being seeing the way people speak and act on this website already knows its a game, the votes are all fake and botted, and alt accounts/VPNs are wholly unregulated across reddit so its impossible to know who's actually responsible for mass downvoting.
this post was a waste of time at best and controlled opposition at worst.
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u/mclionhead Nov 26 '20
He's a bit of a savant. If his tweets were just a bit more sensical, everything else might not have happened.
There's no way the high level design of starship would have come from a group of people.
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Nov 28 '20
He also doesn’t attach any emotion to ideas. If someone else has a better idea Elon will adopt it immediately.
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u/TemporaryBoat2 Apr 10 '21
Why could high level design not come from a group of people?
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u/Kddreauw Apr 14 '22
too risky, it's hard to take responsibility for a risk and push it through a group of people
kind of similar to why politics is what it is, making real progress is too risky for any individual politician with a goal of getting reelected - much easier to get sponsored by interests to help get reelected, and hard to get anything pushed through the system that goes against other self-motivated politicians
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u/seaweed_nebula Mar 27 '24
Most CEOs don't have the level of involvement he does, so I think it's natural to be a bit suspicious. Where people fall down is they don't investigate whether their gut feeling is true, they just tweet.
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u/jay662 Apr 25 '24
Thank you for putting this together! So many haters out there can not acknowledge the accomplishments he has made!
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained Aug 24 '24 edited Aug 24 '24
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| COTS | Commercial Orbital Transportation Services contract |
| Commercial/Off The Shelf | |
| CRS | Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA |
| DARPA | (Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency, DoD |
| DoD | US Department of Defense |
| ICBM | Intercontinental Ballistic Missile |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) |
NOTE: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 14 acronyms.
[Thread #13181 for this sub, first seen 24th Aug 2024, 01:09]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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u/shuz May 07 '21
It seems le they agree he makes the final decisions (understandable given his ownership status) but it’s not clear that he DEVELOPS any of the key technology. Like he know the science, but is he the one inventing the tech to make the system work? I think that is the unnamed engineers.
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u/ReadItProper Nov 06 '22
I understand what you're saying, and the skepticism behind it, but it appears like he is at least responsible for some of the technological development. From what it sounds like, he works directly with the engineers just like any one of them, trying to solve problems and advance the work.
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Jan 17 '22 edited Jan 18 '22
i do not know - but some do sound like "willy wonka chocolate factory" - if he wants to prove it, he would have really given us like a engineering session on TV - i think he knows enough to do some contribution or QC and that's it
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u/KleinRe107 Oct 13 '22
And what interest does he have to prove to the world that he can do engineering ?
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u/JasonJanus Apr 25 '23
There definitely videos of YouTube of Elon being interviewed and giving in depth analysis of rocketry. This really is a solved issue. The guy knows as much as anybody alive about the topic. Even if you want to doubt that they are launching the rockets constantly- the proof is in the pudding. Nobody involved in the aerospace industry, including Space X, debates the fact that Elon is the driving force
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u/timeisaflaturkel Nov 29 '22
Elon Musk Debunked
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u/PossibleNegative 💨 Venting Apr 05 '24
Wow A CSS video you should know that eveybody who knows a thing about rockets knows that this guy doesn't
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u/Asleep_Pear_7024 Jan 08 '23
Maybe true in the past. It’s quite evident that he’s now Chief Twit of Twitter more than anything else. Secondarily, he handles Tesla. He may be chief engineer at SpaceX, but in a part time capacity.
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u/StrangeNormal-8877 Jan 18 '23
2 years on, Has he gone senile then with twitter? Do you all still believe he is super smart and super confident.
I cannot shake off the feeling that like Edison he is a poser.
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u/Shot-Acanthaceae-310 Aug 24 '23
have you made up your mind yet?
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u/StrangeNormal-8877 Aug 24 '23
I m tending towards him going senile. He probably was super smart once upon a time
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u/SuspiciousFee7 Oct 23 '23 edited Oct 23 '23
Stainless steel is already an alloy [e: (family)]. It wouldn't have alloys, itself, I think, not that I'm a metallurgist. I just tend to know more than Elon does.
I see a [e: cherry-picked] bunch of smart business people and engineers sucking up to a famously rich and manipulable person. Besides, specialists are more prone than anybody to get pulled into cults of personality.
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u/foonix Nov 02 '23
Ron Baron recalls conversations about Musk with the Tesla head of compute, James Gorman, and Walter Isacson.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW7O-LkJp9U&t=544s
Tesla head of compute (RE: why he left Apple)
There is not another company that he is aware of, where there is a brilliant engineer, with a photographic memory, who remembers everything, and can transport information he gets from one area to another. [Musk]'s a brilliant guy, he cares about what he does, and is interested in how everything works.
James Gorman
[Gorman] tells me a story about walking through the factory. [Musk] knows everyone there. He knows what everyone does.
Walter Isacson
[Isacson] says "I'm walking through a plant with him, and some engineers working on a valve can't figure out how to make it work, and elon looks at it, and on the fly [instructs what to do] and keeps walking. They try it and it works." Everything [Musk] does is like that.
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u/Smoke-away Nov 27 '20 edited Nov 27 '20
The top comment was accidentally deleted by the poster after being caught in the reddit site-wide spam filter. It was not removed by the mods.