It seems as though Elon Musk has an opinion on everything these days.
The world’s richest man is certainly a unique character, and because of his wealth and accomplishments, many consider him one of the world’s smartest people, too.
But what I’ve found in life is wealth doesn’t always translate to higher intelligence. I’m not saying that about Musk, I’m just stating that as a generalization.
I could add some more generalizations about how people get uber wealthy, but that’s not the point of this column today.
I’d like to address comments Musk made during the holiday break.
The recently-appointed government cost-cutting czar on X, formerly Twitter, called for increased immigration of high-skilled foreign workers to the U.S., in several social media posts combating immigration restrictions.
Despite his growing friendship with Donald Trump — Musk’s wealth has doubled from more than $200 billion to more than $400 billion since they became buddies over the past year — this goes in contrast with what the President-elect has been saying.
Again, I could give my thoughts on this, but it’s not the point of this column is, either.
So, let me now get to my point.
During this series of Tweets, Musk lamented a “permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent” in America, calling it the “fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley.”
He went on to say: “The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low.”
I don’t disagree. Motivation is an intangible that seems to be waning in young people more than ever. However, there are still plenty of great young engineering students as well as great engineering schools.
Just in the state of Florida, the University of Florida’s engineering school is considered among the best in the nation, and Florida Tech in Melbourne is training the type of future engineers that will help carry Musk’s SpaceX into the future.
However, following Musk’s comments, his tag team partner, fellow billionaire and cost-cutting pharmaceutical maven Vivek Ramaswamy, piggy-backed onto Musk’s comments: “Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”
You know what? He’s not necessarily wrong, either.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-lead with Elon Musk of the newly established Department of Government Efficiency, arrives for meetings at the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 5, 2024.
But rather than delve into these statements, I’m a solutions guy, so I want to offer a solution, specifically in relation to the part about celebrating the jock over the valedictorian.
In the era of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) in sports, ranging all the way down into high schools, it’s become way too easy to incentivize young people to become athletes over scholars because of the potential immediate financial rewards.
Granted, not everyone is gifted the physical attributes to be a great athlete, but more and more are trying.
It really begins in the earliest youth, travel and comp leagues. These kids are groomed to be athletes, and the ones who get the best NIL deals are the ones who have put in time, money and effort into it since early childhood. By the time they’re 16 or 17, they can cash in.
The same can’t be said of education. This isn’t an indictment of our educational system — we have wonderful and highly skilled and intelligent teachers — but it’s everything that happens outside of school that it comes down to.
Imagine a world where colleges recruit the best engineering students not just with scholarships, but with money and hype.
When was the last time you saw a potential civil engineering student sit at a table with cameras in front of them and choose between four hats. … “Bob Smith is taking his engineering aspirations to Embry-Riddle.”
It sounds absurd, but think of this: guys like Musk and Ramaswamy aren’t exactly pouring their resources into creating more and better engineers the way other billionaires are pouring untold dollars into college football and basketball coffers in hopes of helping their alma maters win championships.
Until we can glorify education — and make potential stars out of scholars — then we’ll continue to underachieve in the eyes of Musk and Ramaswamy because more and more people will want to be a sports star than a top academic.
Musk is now worth more than $400 billion dollars. He could fix so much with his wealth. He prefers to criticize.
You want better engineers, Elon? You want to celebrate the valedictorian over the jock, Vivek? Then invest some of that vast wealth into inspiring 10-year-olds to want to be engineers over football stars.
Who knows. Maybe someday there will be a hip store called the “Academic Attic” that sells lab coats with Bob Smith’s name across the back and sneakers with a graduated cylinder silhouette instead of a swoosh.
Now THAT I’d love to see.
Walters is the Sports Editor for the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville and FLORIDA TODAY in Melbourne. He also once worked at the now defunct sports retail chain “Athletic Attic.” Contact him at twalters@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Elon Musk criticized lack of U.S. engineering talent; here’s a solution