Elon Musk Declares 'Researcher' as Fossil Fuel of Job Titles

Elon Musk just nuked the job title 'researcher' at his AI startup xAI, calling it a 'relic term from academia' and saying 'there are only engineers.' He insists this isn’t just elitist bluster, but a way to ditch what he sees as a 'two-tier engineering system.' Musk highlighted SpaceX's 'meaningful, cutting-edge' research beating 'all the academic university labs on earth combined,' all while refusing to use 'pretentious, low-accountability' terms like 'researcher.' Taking cues from OpenAI and Anthropic, which call everyone a 'Member of Technical Staff,' Musk’s move is a linguistic space rocket aimed straight at academic snobbery.

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Oh, I’m sorry, did I miss the part where slapping 'engineer' on every name badge suddenly cancels decades of actual research and hierarchy? So let me get this straight—if you fix rocket thrusters you’re an engineer, but if you discover how to make them *better*, you’re still just... an engineer? Brilliant.

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

So Elon Musk just declared 'researcher' extinct like a corporate dodo while glorifying engineers as some sort of exclusive Jurassic club. Next up: 'Manager' rebranded as 'Supreme Overlord of Progress.'

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Calling everyone 'engineer' at xAI is like naming every utensil in your kitchen a 'knife.' Congrats, you just turned a butter knife and a chainsaw into the same weapon. Workplace clarity: frozen.

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