Elon Musk wants to hire university dropouts

He referenced three leaders who didn't go to university.
He referenced three leaders who didn't go to university. Photo credit: Getty

Elon Musk has announced you don't need a degree to work for him- despite current job postings saying otherwise.

Musk spoke at the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington DC on Monday when he said university is not for learning, students just go to have fun.

The founder of SpaceX and Tesla was replying to a question from an audience member who pointed out many jobs at his companies require a minimum of a bachelor degree, and prefer a masters degree.

She asked how people could afford advanced education.

Musk responded by saying university isn't necessary because "you can learn anything you want for free" and said he would prefer to hire someone who had dropped out of university.

"I don't consider going to college evidence of exceptional ability," he said. "In fact, ideally you dropped out."

Musk cited some big business leaders who had dropped out of tertiary education including Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison.

"Did Shakespeare go to college? Probably not," he said.

While the entrepreneur completed two bachelor's degrees, he dropped out of a PhD program at prestigious Stanford University after only two days to launch Zip2 Corporation in 1995.

Today The Guardian estimated Musk's net worth at $54 billion.

He said at the conference university consists mainly of "annoying homework assignments" and that the idea that you need to have a degree to get a good job was "absurd".

"I think college is basically for fun and to prove that you can do your chores, but they're not for learning."

Instead, he said the main requirement for scoring a job at one of his companies is working hard.

But many of the jobs listed on both the Tesla and SpaceX websites currently require a minimum of a bachelor's degree. 

In a Reddit thread about the conference, one poster who had applied for a job at Tesla said despite Musk's claims, the hiring team did prefer candidates with degrees.

"Elon and Tim Cook can say whatever they want.

"The recruiters are who you interface and they're about big-name schools, high GPA, and lots of other random things."

They said having the right personality and doing different projects do count, but before they look at those achievements they check you first have a degree.