My original reply was to a comment saying Musk is just a money bag. The second comment I replied to was saying that Elon "giving himself" the Chief Engineer title doesn't change anything, effectively carrying over the original claim.

"Chief/Lead Engineer" I guess this can mean a lot of different things. Reason I put "giving himself" to quotes, is because I've been in a situation in a few companies where titles weren't really much of a thing but if someone naturally ended up being in a leading role they would start to be called with such a title.

Given that Elon likes to be hands-on, obviously has a lot of agency, is motivated, and works long hours while shuttling around in his jet every few days (you can hear him saying summaries of his % time used by whichever company in many interviews), I really don't see it impossible that he's grown to the shoes being discussed. I haven't heard anyone saying he's the lead engineer at multiple companies at the same time, though he probably has had periods of putting a lot more time to a specific company, like with Tesla during the over-automation production hell.

I think this comes down to subjectivity and personal experience of what the title pertains. My experience as a Lead Engineer in software has come naturally as I have developed base of tech before others joined and cared for it, including reading most of other people's commits while working 1.5-2x the hours of others. This is in smaller companies. Probably in a bigger company, person with the title would use 70% of their time doing code review and attending meetings, working in a more tiered structure and being less hands-on.

Can I ask why you think the Everyday Astronaut's interview (series) _specifically_ makes Musk incompatible with the "Lead Engineer" title?