LinkedIn restores account of engineer working for Elon Musk’s SpaceX

LinkedIn has reinstated the account of Kairan Quazi, an employee of Elon Musk-led SpaceX who joined the company as a software engineer at 14. The Microsoft-owned professional networking platform initially deleted his account last year due to age. The platform has now allowed Quazi, who joined SpaceX in 2023 to work on the Starlink project, to regain access to his account. His role at the rocket company involves data-oriented design for optimisation problems in beam planning, requiring expertise in low-latency, high-performance computing, and real-time programming. We at the TOI tech team were able to access his LinkedIn account.

In 2023, Quazi stated that LinkedIn notified him about deleting his account due to his age, as he had not yet turned 16. According to LinkedIn’s user agreement, members must be at least 16 years old to create an account on the platform.
In a tweet shared at that time, Quazi wrote: "This is the illogical, primitive nonsense that I face constantly. I can be qualified enough to land one of the most coveted engineering jobs in the world but…”
LinkedIn stated that Quazi would be welcome to join the platform once he turns 16 or older. The company also confirmed that his Premium subscription had been canceled and that any charges incurred had been refunded.
Before SpaceX, Quazi was an intern at Intel Labs for four years and made history as the youngest graduate of Santa Clara University at age 14, earning a BS in Computer Science in 2023. He also holds an AS in Mathematics from Las Positas College, earned at just 11 years old, and has been a speaker at major tech conferences. His LinkedIn account was initially removed in 2023 because he was underage according to the platform's rules.