NEW YORK (AP) — Calling him a “clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman,” Time magazine has named Tesla CEO Elon Musk as its Person of the Year for 2021.
Musk, who is also the founder and CEO of the space exploration company SpaceX, recently passed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the world’s wealthiest person as the rising price of Tesla pushed his net worth to around $300 billion. He owns about 17% of Tesla’s stock, which sold for almost $1,000 a share on Monday.
Time cited the breadth of Musk’s endeavors, from his founding of SpaceX in 2002, to his hand in the creation of the alternative energy company SolarCity in addition to Tesla, the most valuable car company in the world. The magazine emphasizes that its annual acknowledgement is not an award, but rather, “recognition of the person who had the most influence on the events of the year, for good or for ill.”
