Managers in software must write great software

As a 50 year programmer I disagree.

Management is a skill. In my experience, MOST programmers don't have the required skill, nor the proper focus, once they "retire into management". MOST of those spend a fair bit of time trying to prove "they've still got it".

I greatly admire Elon but I'm pretty sure he has no idea how to write self-referential, self-modifying code at the heart of his new robot effort. Can he write the code to handle under-actuated motion? How good are his ROS2 skills? Does he write Verilog? Does he know he can replace pattern-recognizers with optics?

I think Elon is an amazing manager but I'd be surprised to find that he wrote some Steele-level or Trager-level great software.