Tesla chief Elon Musk speaks to the press as he arrives to see the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin last year.
Image Maja Hitij / Getty
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Image Maja Hitij / Getty
Tesla chief Elon Musk speaks to the press as he arrives to see the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin last year.
Image Maja Hitij / Getty
Elon Musk has been named Time’s Person of the Year 2021.
Musk, the richest man on Earth, is the CEO of an aerospace company SpaceX and automotive electronics company Tesla.
Time awarded the title to the person it considers the most influential of the past year. It has title description as to “the person or people who most influence our news and our lives, for better or worse, and represent what matters in the year, for better or for worse.”
“I admire anyone who is making a positive contribution to humanity, whether it’s entertainment or technology,” Musk said. Time. “I think whoever is doing something really useful for the rest of humanity, I have a lot of respect for them.”
Time Editor-in-Chief Edward Felsenthal described Musk as “a person who has had an exceptional influence on life on Earth and also on extraterrestrial life.”
In April, SpaceX won a $2.9 billion contract with NASA to build a lunar lander for the astronauts, beating Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. In September, SpaceX launched the first all-civilian crew to earth orbit.
Musk organized Saturday night live this year, where he said he was “the first with Asperger to host SNL. Or at least the first to admit it.” He’s famous as the vocal – and controversial – person on Twitter, and has more than 66 million followers.
Last year, Time Titled President Biden and Vice President Harris, weeks after their election victory. Other recent winners include climate activist Greta Thunberg, and Jamal Khashoggi and a group of journalists collectively referred to as “the guardians.”
Tien Le is an intern at NPR’s News Desk.
