I just read the comments in the reddit thread. It seems like the sort of vague platitudes people say when they've worked with a person, regardless of their actual competence. Especially in a higher level position, people say this stuff all the time out of BS. I wouldn't take it for much.
Yeah what do these people have to gain by saying anything but platitudes? Why make an enemy out of the richest guy on earth who also happens to have a very passionate fanbase? Of course anyone who has other stuff to do besides looking for a fight is going to praise him when asked.
Yeah but those people went in many directions. Some have their own independent business and fanbase. Some went into education and turned into tenured professors. Some created their own new companies after SpaceX/Tesla and turned into quasi competitors. And yet all of them said all these things only to stay in the good graces of Musk, not likely. Musk might care what Bezos, Gates and co say about him, but some former head of engineer that went into academia, I don't think so.
And of course it also disregards what they actually said, its not just 'platitudes'. Some explained in great detail what he does and why they are so impressed with him.
Some of them like Tom Mueller went out of their way, years after leaving the company, to tell people not to assign all credit to them. Why would they do that, if they wanted that they could have just remained silent.
If a 'chief engineers' job is to coordinate multiple teams of engineers and make high level decisions to lead to a larger strategic goal, then that is what Musk clearly does and does pretty well and that is hard to question.
If he himself can design a rocket engine or an electric motor from scratch is questionable but I don't think that's what being an engineer is.
