Katie Martin (“Fund managers still perplexed by $1tn Tesla dilemma”, The Long View, October 30) quotes David Older as saying “Elon Musk is an engineer and yet he has managed the supply chain better than anyone else.”
Many of the models and techniques to solve this type of problem were developed during wartime and were taught in engineering programmes already in the 1950s under the heading “operations research”.
Not long after, they became standard tools in economics and physics, where Musk earned his two undergraduate degrees. I suggest Musk has managed the supply chain better, not despite, but because he addresses and solves problems like an engineer.
Carsten Kowalczyk
Associate Professor of International Economics, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University,
Medford, MA, US
