I am one of those very stupid American Engineers and unfortunately, I have only been the Vice President at one company, President of another and Owner and President of my own. Sold my own and now to keep busy I consult and trouble shoot.
I have no shortage of clients. While I do not claim to be on Elon's level of expertise I certainly am not dumb either. And I consider myself to just be an average ME with an MBA.
I'll tell ya dirty little secret.
There is an engineering college competition annually here in Ohio. Ohio State is one of the participants and tiny little Cedarville University with about 5,000 students max participates in this as well.
Little old Cedarville has beaten Ohio State lots of times in head to head competitions. They have also beaten Purdue.
That said, they have lost or come in second and third.
SO, Elon is wrong about this. I would not say MIT is a bad school. He is paining with a pretty broad brush imo.
Most people do not possess the IQ that Elon has been blessed with.