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Here's a list of sources that all confirm Elon is an engineer, and the chief engineer at SpaceX:
# Statements by SpaceX Employees
**Tom Mueller**
Tom Mueller is one of SpaceX's earliest employees. He served as the Propulsion CTO from 2002 to 2019. He's regarded as one of the foremost spacecraft propulsion experts in the world and owns many patents for propulsion technologies.
>Space.com: During your time working with Elon Musk at SpaceX, what were some important lessons you learned from each other?
>
>**Mueller:** Elon was the best mentor I've ever had. Just how to have drive and be an entrepreneur and influence my team and really make things happen. He's a super smart guy and he learns from talking to people. He's so sharp, he just picks it up. When we first started he didn't know a lot about propulsion. He knew quite a bit about structures and helped the structures guys a lot. Over the twenty years that we worked together, *now he's practically running propulsion there because he's come up to speed* and he understands how to do rocket engines, which are really one of the most complex parts of the vehicle. *He's always been excellent at architecting the whole mission, but now he's a lot better at the very small details of the combustion process.* Stuff I learned over a decade-and-a-half at TRW he's picked up too.
[Source](https://www.space.com/tom-mueller-impulse-space-mira-spacecraft)

>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"
[Source](https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=20)

>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.
[Source](https://streamable.com/4o1k6d)

**Kevin Watson:**
Kevin Watson 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).

**Garrett Reisman**
Garrett Reisman ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Reisman)) is an engineer and former NASA astronaut. He joined SpaceX as a senior engineer working on astronaut safety and mission assurance.

>“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.’ ”
>
>“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](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/26/spacex-how-elon-musk-took-idea-cusp-history/5257977002/))

>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](https://youtu.be/GNG6ZzDh9C8?t=390))

**Josh Boehm**
Josh Boehm 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](https://www.quora.com/Does-Elon-Musk-do-some-very-technical-work-code-design-etc-at-SpaceX/answer/Josh-Boehm?ch=10&share=8dc8bc2e&srid=Xuwj))
# Statements by External Observers
**Robert Zubrin**
Robert Zubrin ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zubrin)) 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](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whats-driving-elon-musk))
**John Carmack**
John Carmack ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack)) 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](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1038832124747571200?s=19))

**Eric Berger**
Eric Berger is a space journalist and [Ars Technica's senior space editor](https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/).
>True. Elon is the chief engineer in name and reality.
([Source](https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1265080905854574592?s=20))

**Christian Davenport**
Christian Davenport is [the Washington Post's defense and space reporter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/christian-davenport/) 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.

# 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](https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a25953663/elon-musk-spacex-bfr-stainless-steel/))

>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](https://www.ycombinator.com/future/elon/))

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