Yes, this was a rhetorical question. Those countries that require a certification is not relevant to the discussion, because Elon Musk is operating out of America which does not require a certification to be a software engineer. In which case, by your definition, it's just a job or more specifically a job title. That's useless information because then people without a job title or don't care for one aren't engineers, and people who have the job title would automatically be an engineer. So if Elon Musk changes his job title to engineer instead of CEO, is he qualified now? Maybe he should prefix Senior to the title while he's at it.
> 1) he hasn't got anything that comes close to an engineering qualification (no, dropping off a Ph.D. after a a B.Sc. is not enough);
So people who don't have a Ph.D. aren't engineers?
> his job does not involve anything like an engineer's job, which is to "invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety and cost."
Yes, he's a CEO. Are the CEOs of Google and Facebook still engineers if they aren't writing code? And what kind of complex system? Are organizations not complex systems?
> there is no evidence that he did any of this at any point
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If you're an engineer, you should understand this.
How do you think someone gets accepted into an engineering PhD, drop out or not, if they've never did any of this at any point in their life?
