Elon Musk Says A High School Diploma is Not Needed to Work at Tesla

This should have some people lining up for a job! Tesla’s Elon Musk is looking to recruit talent but, unlike most companies, a college degree isn’t required in order to gain employment with him, according to CNBC.

Musk took to Twitter to announce that he is looking for people who work in artificial intelligence (A.I.). “At Tesla, using AI to solve self-driving isn’t just icing on the cake, it the cake” –@lexfridman Join AI at Tesla! It reports directly to me & we meet/email/text almost every day. My actions, not just words, show how critically I view (benign) AI.”

Musk makes it clear that a deep understanding of artificial intelligence takes precedence over actual degrees and formal training to work at Tesla. He mentions they are recruiting for people to work in the San Francisco Bay area in California or Austin, Texas, but “potentially any Tesla Gigafactory” would be okay, Musk tweeted Sunday.

“A PhD is definitely not required,” said the Tesla boss on Twitter on Feb. 2. I “don’t care if you even graduated high school.”

In fact, back in 2014 Musk stated as much back then. “There’s no need even to have a college degree at all or even high school.” Instead, he looks for “evidence of exceptional ability. And if there is a track record of exceptional achievement, then it is likely that that will continue into the future.”

“If somebody graduated from a great university, that may be an indication that they will be capable of great things, but it’s not necessarily the case. If you look at, say, people like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, these guys didn’t graduate from college, but if you had a chance to hire them, of course, that would be a good idea,” Musk said.

Tesla Gigafactories are the places where electric motors and battery packs are assembled. There are Tesla gigafactories in Sparks, Nevada; Buffalo, New York; and Shanghai, China. It was announced in November, that there is a fourth factory that will be built in Berlin, Germany. Tesla vehicles are built with the hardware necessary to offer some current autopilot features and “full self-driving capabilities” in the future.