Elon Musk named Time’s 2021 ‘Person of the Year’
Tesla boss Elon Musk has been named Time magazine’s 2021 “Person of the Year” this afternoon.
The richest man in the world is the founder and chief exec of rocket company SpaceX, and is valued at $74bn (£56bn) after its latest funding round in February 2021.
The South African born businessman has an estimated worth of $297bn (£224bn) and currently owns 17 per cent of Tesla.
He also leads brain-chip startup Neuralink and the infrastructure firm The Boring Company.
Musk is known for his eccentricity and lively Twitter feed, which has been seen to move the markets.
Previous winners of Time’s Person of the Year include President Biden, Greta Thunberg and Mark Zuckerberg.
The magazine said about its winner: “Musk is easily cast as a hubristic supervillain, lumped in with the tech bros and space playboys, for whom money is scorekeeping and rockets are the ultimate toy. But he’s different: he’s a manufacturing magnate—moving metal, not bytes. His rockets, built from scratch on an autodidact’s mold-breaking vision, have saved taxpayers billions, reinvigorated America’s space dreams and are launching satellites to expand Internet access across the globe.”