Elon Musk says you still don't need a college degree to work at Tesla. Here's what he looks for in job applicants instead. (TSLA)

0 0 Wednesday, January 8, 2020 Edit this post

You still don't need a college degree to work for Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO tweeted on Sunday.
"Yes," Musk said when asked whether he didn't require potential employees to have a college degree.
In a 2014 interview, Musk said he looked for "evidence of exceptional ability" in a potential employee, rather than a degree from a prestigious university.
"If there's a track record of exceptional achievement, then it's likely that that will continue into the future," Musk said in 2014.
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You still don't need a college degree to work for Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO tweeted on Sunday.

"Yes," Musk said when asked whether he didn't require potential employees to have a college degree.

Musk's answer echoed one he gave during a 2014 interview with the German automotive publication Auto Bild.

"There's no need even to have a college degree at all, or even high school," Musk said after being asked whether he considered which college a job applicant attended when evaluating a prospective Tesla employee. "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."

Rather than a degree from a prestigious university, Musk said he looked for "evidence of exceptional ability" in an employee.

"If there's a track record of exceptional achievement, then it's likely that that will continue into the future," Musk said.

Musk said that when interviewing job candidates, he would ask them to give a summary of their career and describe how they solved some of the most difficult problems they'd faced. To make sure interviewees are not taking credit for someone else's work, Musk will ask detailed questions about the problems they describe. If an interviewee wasn't responsible for solving the problem, the person will not know the answers.

Musk, for his part, received undergraduate degrees in physics and economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Are you a current or former Tesla employee? Do you have an opinion about what it's like to work there? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com. You can also reach out on Signal at 646-768-4712 or email this reporter's encrypted address at mmatousek@protonmail.com.