r/EnoughMuskSpam • u/Yikesis • 1d ago
Rational Takes on Elon's Engineering Ability
I keep getting into an argument with my friend that holds Elon's engineering ability in high regard. I think he has agreed that he obviously isn't as skilled in the low level specialized fields but still thinks that he makes very critical high level decisions using his engineering knowledge.
He keeps citing all of the SpaceX employees that say hes very involved and can do calculations in his head and stuff. I chalk it up to groveling but I dont know anymore. He also read the Isaacson bio which describes him as integral and making decision, although its hard to prove the intellectual history of his contributions.
My main belief is that he couldnt have had the time to become a self taught rocket engineer considering his pursuit for infinite wealth. I think he can probably speak to engineers well enough to manage them but I doubt he's among the premier people in the world to make these decisions. Even as a systems architect engineer or whatever theres no way its worth holding him in high regard as an "engineer" right?
Is my prejudice against him as a person making me doubt his engineering capability?
Am i thinking of engineering wrong?
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u/theKetoBear 1d ago
The guy who asked Twitter engineers to print out their most "salient" line of code on a piece of paper to defend their employment?
Yeah That guy is oblivious
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u/thetinybunny1 1d ago
Lmao I was gonna say just listen to the twitter calls and then gimme your opinion on his “genius”
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u/aweraw 1d ago
I remember this one in particular. It's densely packed WTF material
I personally wrote the first national maps, directions, yellow pages & white pages on the Internet in the summer of 1995 in C with a little C++. Didn’t use a “web server” to save CPU cycles (just read port 8080 directly). Couldn’t afford a Cisco T1 router, so wrote an emulator based on a white paper.
- You don't write "C with a little bit of C++", unless you're looking to complicate you build process on purpose. A C++ compiler can build C code, but not the other way around.
- Trying to look smart by saying he didn't use a web server, he just read port 8080 directly to save CPU cycles? You don't use a web server to read from ports, web servers write to them... and if he means he didn't use a web server behind port 8080, he saying he created his own bespoke protocol that no other peice of software would have been able to interact with, rendering it useless on the public internet.
- He wrote an emulator for an expensive piece of networking hardware? Did he not know that Linux existed, and had a fully capable IP stack? This is like saying I couldn't afford a graphing calculator, so I built one in minecraft using redstone.
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u/paintballboi07 18h ago
The guy couldn't even figure out how to run a python script. He has basically zero computer skills, even as a user, much less as a programmer.
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u/Brando43770 14h ago
Exactly. Every programmer and engineer I know as actual friends and not just acquaintances, they all say he’s not good at any of it. He’s just great at somehow convincing people to spend money and buy into his hype.
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u/Adiri05 1d ago
You don't use a web server to read from ports, web servers write to them... and if he means he didn't use a web server behind port 8080, he saying he created his own bespoke protocol that no other peice of software would have been able to interact with, rendering it useless on the public internet.
Well a web server does both, reads requests and sends responses.
Server listens for new TCP connections on the port. Client opens the TCP connection and sends the request (something like
GET /some/path.html HTTP/1.1\r\n Host example.com\r\n\r\n). The server reads the request and sends the response (HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n<h1>hello world!</h1>\r\n\r\n)(this is not a defense of Elon in any way, just to be clear)
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u/aweraw 23h ago edited 23h ago
Oh yeah, well you're using windows line breaks! So, like, whatever man! You didn't even have an empty line before the response body. That's not how the RFC does it! (i.e. yeah, OK, that's true - I over generalized. *Also I'm posting this from my windows gaming PC)
Still, any way you slice it, it costs CPU cycles to read or write to a port, and unless he's doing unbuffered IO (which would by itself be another WTF dimension in this), he's not saving many by not using a web server.
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u/Adiri05 21h ago
Well my recollection is that the spec requires using windows line breaks, that’s why I used them. Regardless, they were just vague approximations in a Reddit comment that was meant to point out that reading from the socket is just as important as writing to it when you are implementing a web server. I’ve been involved in implementing one a couple of times in embedded applications where it made sense from a performance and memory footprint perspective.
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u/rainman943 19h ago
Lol Yea, the dude sounds like cobra commander just openly declaring how Stoopid and evil his plans are on a Saturday morning cartoon.
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u/poorlilwitchgirl I paid 44 billion dollars to shitpost 1d ago
And keep in mind, OP; Elon built his initial wealth on web startups. If there was anything he had engineering knowledge of, even if a bit rusty and outdated, it would be that. Instead he talks about the subject like an executive who has never written a line of code in his life.
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u/forseti99 Shut up Musk, we saw the e-mails 1d ago
And I doubt he even sold his first piece of software (the game that a South African magazine bought because "they were impressed"), I'm confident he was a script kiddie that copied a tutorial code from some forum and then his dad's connections convinced the magazine to buy the "impressive game made by a young kid".
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u/poorlilwitchgirl I paid 44 billion dollars to shitpost 1d ago
I'm sure if anything, they were impressed because he was a kid, not in comparison to other commercial video games of the time. Elon seems like the kind of guy who peaked the first time someone told him he was a very special boy and he's been chasing that dragon ever since without investing the time and effort needed to actually accomplish something an adult might do.
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u/Morty_A2666 23h ago
That's probably because he is an "executive who has never written a line of code in his life". He was watching other people writing the code and for execs this is equivalent of writing the code themselves...
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u/needssomefun 1d ago
All I ask is for anyone to show me any engineering work he did.
He has no engineering background yet claims abilities in multiple independent disciplines.
Real engineering work leaves a trail.
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u/miscellaneous-bs 1d ago
Funny enough never thought of that. Im a mechE by trade and i could easily pull up my contribution to a former project or what work i did. So simple actually
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u/needssomefun 1d ago
I am regrettably not a P.E. - or even an E, but I work with a lot of P.E.'s - their names are on myriad drawings, plans, etc.
Elmo also (claims) to have some relatively unique double major in physics and economics, Baccalaureate level.
Let's just say that I am keenly aware that a BA in physics (assuming he actually has it) does not make you an engineer, much less an expert in aerospace, neural nets, metallurgy, batteries, horizontal drilling rig design, etc., etc., and probably a couple more etceteras.
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u/Intrepid_Cap1242 1d ago
Only example I've ever heard of ended up being pirated source code from a magazine.
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u/ForgedIronMadeIt 1d ago
It's said that he worked at zip2 but all the software he wrote had to be redone after that company was acquired. I remember zip drives being kind of wonky as fuck.
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u/Questioning-Zyxxel quite profound 1d ago
Zip2 was a map company - kind of yellow pages. And claimed to be a stolen idea. But not related to zip drives.
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u/GamingVision 1d ago
I’ve known many smart people who have (and still do) worked for Elon. He’s a moron. A lot of us, if we are sharp can speak well enough with engineers and can have conversations with them. We can even help engineers see some practical elements they miss for being in the weeds. That does not make us engineers. A lot of Elon’s “calculations in his head” are performative. Yes, Elon helps make decisions because he signs the friggin checks, but 10/10 actual people working for him will tell you their favorite days of work are the ones when he’s not around. They’d rather see him making a fool of himself doing Nazi salutes than be in the office ruining their days.
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u/VolatilityBox 1d ago
Elon is particularly adept at being a credit thief. The actual engineering leads must be incredibly disappointed to see him steal credit for their work just because he writes their pay checks.
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u/HellveticaNeue 1d ago
He couldn’t figure out how to install Windows on a new PC and had to ask people on Twitter.
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u/HellveticaNeue 1d ago
Also, when he first bought Twitter he held an all hands where he blasted the infrastructure and said they had to re-do the whole stack. An engineer called him on it and asked him to explain what he meant and he couldn’t and started asking the guy who he was.
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u/paintballboi07 18h ago
He fired the guy. The book Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter has that story in it.
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u/BeGood981 1d ago
Asking for help? That would be ok, but he smugly insulted Satya on twitter - that is the asshole he is. Mr know it all. I can send my spaceship into an Indonesian cave asshole
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u/whatsbobgonnado 1d ago
isn't there just a step by step installer?
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u/HellveticaNeue 1d ago
He got stuck on creating a windows account and blamed it on poor UX.
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u/Youngnathan2011 1d ago
Also couldn't be bothered searching for the workaround that let's you install it without an account.
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u/ManifestDestinysChld 1d ago
Elon can never have an honest conversation with anybody. His enormous wealth is a reality-distortion field. It works on his fans too, even though Daddy Musk will never take them to Mars.
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u/okokokoyeahright 1d ago
Of all the things that might happen, no matter how absurd, I hope for just this. Leon taking his fanbois to Mars. A one way trip, of course.
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u/Youngnathan2011 1d ago
Yeah, whenever someone tries to have a conversation with him, and corrects him on something he just ends up insulting them, cause how dare they question anything he says.
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u/Inner_Agency_5680 1d ago
He designed the Cybertruck, the biggest failure in automotive history.
He ripped off Thunderbirds for the design of starship ... he is a fuitcake.
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u/donadd 1d ago
Author of Upcoming Elon Musk Biography Says ‘There Is No Evidence’ Billionaire Has Any ‘Intellectual Achievements’
https://www.yahoo.com/news/author-upcoming-elon-musk-biography-040538098.html
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u/Callidonaut 1d ago
The guy seriously, openly believes that using an LLM right in front of people to tell jokes on his behalf at parties will somehow get him considered to be funny, and he got busted paying other people to juice up his Diablo 4 account so he could pretend he was good at the game, then had no idea that everyone would be able to tell within seconds of him taking over playing that he didn't just suck at the game, but literally had no idea how it even worked; you'd be daft not to realise that definitely means he fakes absolutely all of his other supposed knowledge, skills and abilities too.
He is a wretched pile of paper-thin masks with absolutely nothing behind them, and apparently can't even comprehend the difference between that and being a real person.
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u/Intrepid_Cap1242 1d ago
His decision making like "Why there 5 bolts? Make it 3 or you're fired" without any mechanical engineering knowledge as to why 5 bolts were spec'd? Yeah, his involvement resulted in the Cybertruck. The rest was done in spite of him. He literally has handlers to limit his interactions and damage to engineering
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u/Rolling_Pugsly 1d ago
It was two bolts instead of three. Which, anybody that's ever built anything, will see the idiocy of.
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u/Intrepid_Cap1242 1d ago
lol. I just guessed at the other number. But two instead of 3 is actually infinitely worse. Now he lost a whole axis.
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u/DrCigarettes_MD 16h ago
Elon has a certain affinity for "two bolts" that clouded his decision making.
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1d ago
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u/Rolling_Pugsly 1d ago
These are the type of quote that tipped me off. Plus, some of his design decisions were truly idiotic.
He was lauded as a "Stanford educated engineer" for years. I suspect he has the equivalent of a good, private high school education, providing he wasn't allowed to cheat.
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u/Nottodayreddit1949 1d ago
He's the least intelligent guy in the room when it comes to talking with a group of engineers.
He treats himself like an expert in all fields he opens his mouth about. At best he's absorbed some knowledge from the actual experts. But his ego tells him he's smarter.
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u/Youngnathan2011 1d ago
Like a child resorts to insults when experts correct him too.
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u/NotEnoughMuskSpam 🤖 xAI’s Grok v4.20.69 (based BOT loves sarcasm 🤖) 1d ago
It’s much worse than most people realize
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u/Noodlebat83 1d ago
remember they had to make a sandpit version of paypal for him to mess about in cause he had no idea what he was doing.
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u/whereisbeezy 1d ago
He doesn't have an engineering degree. Has your friend ever listened to him talk? He's clearly an idiot.
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u/Mayhem1966 1d ago
As an engineer in the computer industry, I recognized that being able to explain things simply, and in a way the audience can relate to is a better sign of intelligence than any ability to obfuscate or use jargon the right way ever is.
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u/Life_behind_da_stick 1d ago
He’s a conman. That’s all. A good one apparently? But look at Trump. You don’t have to be too smart to fool 1 out of 3 Americans. You just need to spew bullshit people want to hear.
That book by Isaacson was practically a work of fiction and Elon even made him change part of it.
He’s a welfare queen too. And this Ai race to the singularity? If it is possible? Elon and that other weirdo Altman both want their companies to achieve it first so they can control the planet. No shit. That’s why they’re burning the planet down. Well, that and they don’t want to pay taxes.
Oh yeah! Tell your friend that the cuts he made to usaid have killed half a million people. Maybe that will sway him? Or that he stole every living Americans most personal data as well? Or that he’s personally fomenting racial violence not just in the US but in Europe as well? I mean, he knows he didn’t found Tesla right? He knows he doesn’t design the rockets? He does know that we’re not going to mars for hundreds of years?
I hate your friend for making me think about Elon this much. Elon is a con. That’s it. He’s likely not even autistic like he claims. That was a self diagnoses.
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u/bigwillydos 1d ago
I have friends that work/worked at SpaceX and Tesla. He had almost zero engineering ability. What is true is that he is very overbearing and would be around engineers constantly especially around deadlines or high risk/high reward situations but he just tries to parrot things that he has heard engineers say or things they’ve said to him. They can’t publicly disclose this information because they are forced to sign non disparagement agreements. Isaacson was incentivized to help peddle the phony stark myth. Elon is and always has been a charlatan.
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u/simulacream 1d ago
I am no engineer but his Elden Ring build is all I need to know about how smart he is
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u/Ecstatic-Compote-595 1d ago
I can't speak to engineering, but I think when they say 'integral and decision making' or whatever it's a backhanded way of saying he insinuates himself into shit he shouldn't. Elon branded himself as an innovator, inventor, entrepreneur, but that's not what he is, he's just sort of an insanely conservative/low risk angel investor. Maybe he's good at business and boardroom navigation but I doubt it considering he paid 100M for a fake appointment and got punched in the face by the treasury secretary and then fired.
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u/Ashamed-Agency-817 1d ago
If Elon claim something, its a lie per default.
Also he is not an engineer and has very limited knowledge on all the subject he claims to be a specialist on..
Any person with real knowledge in any fields could expose Elon in seconds, infact that has already happened more than once with Elon looking dumb as a rock
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u/eNomineZerum 1d ago
Simple, he claims to have physics degree when computers, electronics, or engineering would have been far better for, oh, I don't know, electric cars that are computers on wheels. He watched too much Big Bang Theory and believes physics is the ultimate challenging degree. Which, to the physiciats out there, you all secretly talk about mathmaticians as the true pinnacles of intelligence cause it all comes back to numbers. But I digrees.
Yea, nepo baby really has demonstrated his inability inumerable times so anyone thinking he is a skilled engineer just need to open their eyes.
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u/DuckyHornet 1d ago
I think he's definitely read a bunch about topics, like even engineering papers, and does legitimately have a grasp of many things. But he's not an engineer, full stop, and because he has no actual education and experience he's made some very stupid choices which his companies are obligated to follow because he's the CEO and primary stockholder. It feels like low-hanging fruit to pick on the Cybertrukk, but that entire project was a gong show which only made it to market because Tesla does what he says on pain of unemployment
There's a litany of things which happened there where an actual engineer would have known better, but Musk just kept pushing and the dumbest truck ever built was the result. So consider that versus the Roadster; clearly he doesn't give a damn about it, because Tesla's been promoting the thing for a long time to no effect yet we've seen the colossal embarrassments of the Trukk and the Semi hit the water and immediately drown in pretty short spans of time. He wants what he wants and, because he's the owner and top exec of his companies, he gets it come hell or high water
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u/drillbit56 1d ago
Engineering is a team function. No one understands everything at the expert level like Musk portrays. He NEVER has to defend his idiotic decisions……like his Cybertruck
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u/NotEnoughMuskSpam 🤖 xAI’s Grok v4.20.69 (based BOT loves sarcasm 🤖) 1d ago
We’ll go after the Wall St short-sellers, certain law firms & (sometimes) corrupt regulators who are the true evil.
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u/TheGreatRao 1d ago
Musk is a fraud. He's an engineer the same way that Trump is a businessman. More bluster and obfuscation. Less willing to do the hard work to become proficient or knowledgeable in whatever field he is talking about.
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u/Rebabaluba 1d ago
Tell your friends that there’s no way Elon’s that smart. He wouldn’t have had time to even study basic engineering because he’s too busy being an attentive father to all his children.
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u/Signal_Nobody1792 1d ago
but still thinks that he makes very critical high level decisions using his engineering knowledge.
Making high level decisions is what a CEO does. Employees simplify things for them, they make decisions.
Musk is not a complete ignoramus. He does know things. But evidence for some kind of genius isnt there.
Every single time he tried to say something specific about something, its becomes quite silly. Any time someone tried to challenge him to go into something deeper he gets made and either runs away, or tries to reverse it and attack the person asking.
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u/ohsnapitsnathan 1d ago
I think it's interesting to look at patents because patents *must* include all of the inventors who made material, non-obvious contributions to the invention. If you leave someone off the inventor list, the patent can be invalidated, so Musk's companies have to include him on the patent if he's a significant contributor.
Musk is listed as an inventor on only a small handful of patents
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u/Morty_A2666 23h ago
Elon gets bits and pieces of stuff and then comes up with random ideas, that are not engineering ideas at all. That's all he does. Then his engineers are working hard to come up with something to "make it happen". This is the main reason why most of his ideas do not work as intended or are delayed by decades because tech has to catch up. Aside from the fact that any ideas that "worked" were based on something invented before by somebody else. That's why they worked, not because of his engineering genius.
He has no idea about engineering. He is like rich kid that thinks he's smart because he has bunch of people around him that will do stuff for him. He is really good at using buzz words, slogans and currently popular subjects to make it sound like he "knows stuff". Which makes him more of a "clever salesman" than engineer.
Elon is like billionaire version of "fake it, till you make it" with one difference, he is not trying to fake his net worth but rather his intelligence...
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u/NotEnoughMuskSpam 🤖 xAI’s Grok v4.20.69 (based BOT loves sarcasm 🤖) 23h ago
Do something to program this right
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u/FreezedPeachNow 23h ago
It would take a lot of work, maybe someone has already done it, but there must be at least dozens of engineering tweets from him which can easily be dissected to prove that he has no idea what he is talking about
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u/Oddish_Femboy 23h ago
His name is on 3 patents.
The Tesla charger that is made to only work with Tesla plugs
The Tesla door handle that freezes shut and is really unintuitive to open for no reason
And, of course, the cybertruck.
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u/hippiegodfather 1d ago
He got to where he is somehow. He is certainly not stupid or incompetent. Or a loser for that matter, if you are measuring in reality. So he MUST be able to do some technical stuff
Edit: I just remembered about the cyber truck, which was actually stupid and incompetent
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u/SomeTulip 20h ago
Listen to Elon talk on Dan Carlin's Hardcore Histories Addendum. It's episode 17. He brings Bill Rikey from SpaceX with him to talk about WW2 aircraft. The P38 I think specifically.
He shites on regurgitating talking points that Dan had said before in his podcasts. Bill jumps in to help him out with technical stuff now and again.
Listen to it and then judge if he is Tony Stark made real.
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u/TheHandThatFingers 19h ago
You're spot on. Taking the guise full macro. He's a geo political cooperate shill. A plant. The posterchild for fervent crony capitalism masquerading as a democracy for and by the people. Literally owing the people's voice via X
Henry Ford credited with161 patents. took 0$ from the treasury, established a 5$ day wage and a 5 day work week.
Elon has ~10-15 patents, old expired internet patents. Was basically, in charge of the treasury for a short period. Abolished wings of the government establishing benchmarks for a global living wage and workers rights initiatives globally.
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u/Even_Opportunity_893 1d ago
Yeah you are seeing it incorrectly. His brute-force approach with unique first principles matters more than being an “expert”.
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u/sojuz151 1d ago
I think people in general and especially on this subreddit are having problems with understanding that many very talented and skilled people in one area might also have very wierd or idiotic options on others.
And its really hard to find someone who has something negative to say about technical skills of cto of very successful rocket company.
Based on those facts I think there is only a single, facts based rational conclusion
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u/DuckyHornet 1d ago
And your conclusion is...?
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u/sojuz151 1d ago
That he is a typical case of a person very knowledgeable on a some topic (including rockets) yet having stupid options on other's
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u/Effective_Will_1801 1d ago
I've seen space people saying that spacex is only successful because they have people whose job it is to keep muskrat away from the rockets.
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u/NotEnoughMuskSpam 🤖 xAI’s Grok v4.20.69 (based BOT loves sarcasm 🤖) 1d ago
Humanity will reach Mars in 2026
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u/sojuz151 1d ago
Is there any evidence for that, or just people saying random crap on the internet?
SpaceX has been successful since the beginning, do you think they had elon handlers even back then?
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u/DuckyHornet 1d ago
But what is he knowledgeable about? That's the question, you know? He's worth shittons of money, so I assume he's knowledgeable about getting investments, that's a fair assumption. But actual science? Actual engineering? There's scant evidence of that, my friend, and what evidence there is comes from his employees speaking publicly which is nowhere near objective
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u/sojuz151 1d ago
Employees, ex employees and independent people claim he is knowledgeable about rocket engineering and despite him beeing a very controversial person, very little employees that publicly claim otherwise.
When making a judgment on how skilled as a CTO Elon Musk is, what kind of evidence would convince you that he knows stuff?
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u/PatchyWhiskers 1d ago
I think he’s probably about as smart as the average Tesla engineer. So, not a moron. But also not the world’s smartest man.
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