In 2021, electric car company Tesla became the most valuable carmaker in the world. Its market value soared to more than $1 trillion, making it more valuable than Ford Motor and General Motors combined. Its chief executive officer, Elon Musk, is TIME Magazine's 2021 Person of the Year.
“For creating solutions to an existential crisis, for embodying the possibilities and the perils of the age of tech titans, for driving society’s most daring and disruptive transformations, Elon Musk is TIME’s 2021 Person of the Year. Even Elon Musk’s spacefaring adventures are a direct line from the very first Person of the Year, Charles Lindbergh, whom the editors selected in 1927 to commemorate his historic first solo transatlantic airplane flight over the Atlantic.," TIME Magazine Editor-in-Chief Edward Felsenthal shared as the winner for Person of the Year was announced on YouTube, the first time ever in the poll's history.
Aside from being the CEO of Tesla, Musk is also the founder and CEO of SpaceX, and leads brain-chip startup Neuralink and infrastructure firm The Boring Company. In his Person of the Year interview, Musk shared his confidence in the future of his Tesla cards. He also relayed his hope that similar electric car companies also achieve their own success. As for Tesla's autopilot feature, which has been called into question by many people, he admitted that there is still "a lot of work to do".
This year alone, Musk hosted "Saturday Night Live" and dropped tweets on cryptocurrencies and meme stocks that have triggered insane movements in their value. With over 66 million followers on Twitter, Musk continues to dominate the world of technology.
TIME Magazine picks the most influential person, persons, or group every year. Whether the honoree's influence is good or bad, the person chosen must have had an impact on the world -- the only reason why they are given the title. The jurors for the Person of the Year are the editors of TIME Magazine. However, TIME also has a reader's poll where fans can vote on who they think should be given the Most Influential Person of the Year award. Earlier this month, it was announced that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was the winner of the reader's poll.
Other TIME honorees include Olivia Rodrigo as the Entertainer of the Year and Simone Biles as the Athlete of the Year. In 2020, U.S. president Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were named as Person of the Year as the two won the 2020 elections. In 2019, it was environmental Greta Thunberg who was awarded the honor and in 2018, a group of journalists called "The Guardians" who went above and beyond for their work were named Person of the Year.
