Elon Musk Says You Don't Need a High School Diploma to Join Tesla's AI Team

Tesla can be your dream company as its Founder and CEO Elon Musk has claimed that you don't need to have a college degree or even a high school diploma to join the electric automobile company. The 48-year-old technology entrepreneur highlighted the eligibility criteria for joining Tesla while reaching out to potential employees for its artificial intelligence (AI) team. He is using Twitter to operate the latest recruitment drive. Notably, Musk himself dropped out of a Ph.D. programme at Stanford University in 1995 -- just after two days starting his entrepreneurial career by co-founding software licence company Zip2 along with his brother Kimbal Musk.

“Join AI at Tesla!” Musk tweeted on Sunday, adding that the AI team at Tesla reports directly to him.

When asked if a doctorate in AI is required to qualify, Musk objected.

“A Ph.D. is definitely not required,” he responded in a follow-up tweet. “All that matters is a deep understanding of AI and the ability to implement NNs [neural networks] in a way that is actually useful (latter point is what's truly hard). Don't care if you even graduated high school.”

Instead of having a degree, Musk emphasised in another tweet that all candidates “must pass hardcore coding test.” This indicates that Tesla does require candidates to go through a test.

Although Musk tried to highlight that a certain educational background isn't the key requirement for joining Tesla, some Twitter users showed scepticism.

“It can be proven if you can show me the ratio of Ph.D. to high school grads among Tesla employees,” one of the readers to Musk's tweets mentioned. “Otherwise, it is another cliche motivational talk.”

Having said that, many Twitter users have praised Musk for giving emphasis on knowledge over educational qualifications.

“[Musk] didn't get a degree in aerospace and he is the lead engineer for the most revolutionary rocket company,” one of the respondents tweeted. “The man understands that you can learn things without a diploma.”

This isn't the first time when Musk has highlighted the unimportance of possessing degrees and diplomas. In an interview given to the German automotive magazine Auto Bild back in 2014, he had said, “There's no need even to have a college degree at all, or even high school.”

Musk tagged the host of the Artificial Intelligence podcast on YouTube, Lex Fridman, while starting his recruitment drive on Twitter. He has been leveraging AI and related technologies to bring smart driving experiences through Tesla cars.