Musk is basically trying to be an Old Republic Sith Lord and filtering for apprentices. All he has to do is throw down a gauntlet and it'll attract people who

Musk is basically trying to be an Old Republic Sith Lord and filtering for apprentices. All he has to do is throw down a gauntlet and it'll attract people who like running gauntlets. This particular gauntlet is software engineering. Make a thing seem really hard and prestigious (even if it's artificially hard) and you'll attract the hyper-competitive people.