Their engineers & researchers are not 3rd rate and they have enough compute and cash flow. I think the USAMO/math comp benchs means it's pretty good and SOTA but not like a step change.

How are they making SOTA if they're 3rd rate? You forget how late they came into the game

They spent enormous amounts of time and money hiring a very impressive team.

You and I have different definitions of what makes a person impressive.

I would be many times more impressed by the talented person who chose not to work with the figure Musk has become.