There’s been plenty of talk surrounding who TIME magazine may choose as its 2021 Person of the Year. With the current political climate in our country, just about any choice has the potential to lead to much controversy. Interestingly enough, TIME chose Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
While the choice of Musk for the esteemed person of the year award may rub some folks the wrong way, it may also come as no surprise, especially to those who support EV adoption.
Sure, Musk makes a lot of waves on social media on a regular basis. He recently tweeted about pooping, and he’s been going after various politicians for a time. There’s also the recent talk about Musk’s taxes, his decision to sell 10% of his Tesla shares, and a whole host of scrutiny from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
With all of that said, there’s absolutely no denying that Musk has been integral in leading the electric car revolution. Even rival CEO Jim Farley is willing to admit that publically. The tweet below isn’t the first time Ford CEO Farley has given credit to Musk where credit is due.
In addition to electric cars, Musk has also worked to revolutionize space travel, proving the impossible possible on a number of occasions. Yes, despite years of skepticism, you can actually land rockets and reuse them. We could also talk about Musk’s tunneling efforts with The Boring Company, or his satellite internet initiatives via Starlink.
It has been a very interesting year for Tesla and Musk. The company continues to delay vehicle launches, it can’t possibly keep up with demand, and it’s raising the prices of its vehicles seemingly constantly. The company’s achieved a $1 trillion market cap, stock has surged, leveled out, and then dropped significantly. Tesla is now allowing owners to test its Full Self-Driving Beta suite that’s not actually capable of full self-driving, which is raising plenty of red flags.
Tesla is on the verge of opening two new factories, one in Texas and the other in Germany, though it still maintains that vehicle deliveries will take as long as a year to arrive after placing an order.
TIME writes:
“This is the man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit: clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman, cad; a madcap hybrid of Thomas Edison, P.T. Barnum, Andrew Carnegie and Watchmen’s Doctor Manhattan, the brooding, blue-skinned man-god who invents electric cars and moves to Mars. His startup rocket company, SpaceX, has leapfrogged Boeing and others to own America’s spacefaring future. His car company, Tesla, controls two-thirds of the multibillion-dollar electric-vehicle market it pioneered and is valued at a cool $1 trillion.”
Despite all the controversy surrounding Tesla and Musk, not to mention the flood of crazy (almost always negative) headlines, Tesla has found success, and it’s moving forward at a breakneck pace. TIME added:
“If Tesla delivers on its pledges, it has the potential to strike a major blow against global warming. The man from the future where technology makes all things possible is a throwback to our glorious industrial past, before America stagnated and stopped producing anything but rules, restrictions, limits, obstacles, and Facebook.”
We’re not here to decide whether or not Musk is deserving of such an iconic award. That’s TIME magazine’s job. We’re also not here to try to make sense of any of it. However, we will say that TIME has done an arguably outstanding job of putting it all into perspective. Whether or not you’re a fan of Musk, the publication’s story behind the person of the year is well worth reading.
Check it out by watching the video above and following the source link below. Then, leave us your thoughts in the comment section below.
Sources: TIME, TIME (YouTube)
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