Musk was named Time's Person of the Year: unparalleled impact on Earth and extraterrestrial life

Source | The Paper

On December 13, local time, the US "Time" magazine announced that the 2021 person of the year was Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla.

"Almost no one can match his impact on life on Earth, or even on extraterrestrial life." Time magazine editor-in-chief Edward Feltenthal said of Musk.

Time magazine's People of the Year selection began in 1927, and the winners can be individuals or groups, with positive or negative effects. In 2020, the winners were U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris.

Time magazine said in an article about Musk, "As the richest man in the world, Musk does not have a house and has been selling property lately." He puts the satellite into orbit and runs on solar energy; he drives a car of his own making that requires little gasoline and little driver. The flick of his finger can cause the stock price to skyrocket or plummet. His every word was taken as a guideline by a large group of fans. As he swept the globe he also dreamed of colonizing Mars, and his square jaw revealed indomitability. ”

TIME Person of the Year: "Few people have had a greater impact on life on Earth and beyond Than Musk"

1

Genius and workaholic

Time magazine uses these words to describe Musk: a clown, a genius, a leader, a visionary, an industrialist, a performer, a scoundrel; a crazy mix of Edison (inventor), Barnum (the father of modern PR), Carnegie (entrepreneur), and Dr. Manhattan (a superhero, scientist in DC Comics).

Time magazine wrote: "His start-up rocket company, SpaceX, has surpassed Boeing and other companies to have the future of the U.S. space industry." His car company, Tesla, pioneered the electric car market and accounted for two-thirds of it, and Tesla's trillion-dollar market capitalization made him the richest man in history. He is also a participant in robotics, solar, cryptocurrency, climate, human brain interface, and underground tunnel speeding. ”

2021 undoubtedly belongs to Musk.

In April, SpaceX won NASA's first exclusive contract since 1972 to send American astronauts to the moon, and will build a lunar landing system that can send astronauts to the moon by 2024;

In May, Musk hosted the nation's top veteran talk show, Saturday Night Live;

In September, Musk's SpaceX made history by successfully sending four private passengers into orbit, completing the first ever space mission by a national crew;

In October, car rental giant Hertz placed an order for 100,000 vehicles with a total value of $4.4 billion, making Musk the world's richest man;

On November 14, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket performed the launch of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, completing the first planetary defense test in human history.

Time magazine also portrayed the "genius" behind the article.

Tesla has been in a state of crisis for years. With production behind schedule and at risk of a break in the capital chain, Musk spent most of his time on the factory floor in April 2018.

"He would wake up, look at the monitors on the wall, and go after the constraints," Musk's advisers recalled to Time magazine, "where he would check the system, rewrite the code himself, and solve the problem little by little." He will lead by example and endure the greatest pain. ”

"In June of that year, on Musk's 47th birthday, he stopped briefly, took a bite of a cake he bought at a convenience store, and then returned to the aisle of the paint shop." Time magazine wrote.

2

The richest man and rogue

"In 2021, Musk will not only be the richest man in the world, but probably the richest example of social upheaval." Felsenthal wrote.

2021 is a landmark year for Musk, who has attracted worldwide attention for becoming the world's richest man, which relies considerably on the soaring stock price of Tesla.

On October 25, 2021, Tesla received an order for 100,000 vehicles with a total value of $4.4 billion from the car rental company Hertz, and tesla's stock price soared, with a market value of more than $1,000 billion. Tesla thus became the sixth stock in the United States to have a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion after Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Facebook.

Musk's personal wealth also "rose and rose", becoming the world's richest man, and his net worth once exceeded $300 billion.

Since November, Musk has been selling Tesla stock and exercising options. As of Dec. 13, he had sold a total of 11.03 million shares of Tesla stock, worth nearly $12 billion. To complete the 10 percent of the stock he mentioned in his Twitter vote, about 6 million more shares would be needed.

With Musk's sell-off, Tesla's stock price ushered in huge fluctuations, but it did not appear the "waist cut" expected by some netizens, and even many analysts raised Tesla's target stock price.

On December 7, UBS raised Tesla's target stock price from $725 to $1,000, and analyzed that Tesla will continue to dominate the electric vehicle market in 2022.

According to Tesla's financial report, in the first three quarters of 2021, its total global revenue was $36.104 billion, an increase of 73.64% year-on-year; net profit attributable to common shareholders was $3.198 billion, an increase of 609.09% year-on-year. At the same time, the gross profit margin of its automotive business has been as high as 30.5% in the third quarter.

After some "tossing", Musk is still firmly on the throne of the richest man. According to the Bloomberg Global Billionaires List, as of December 13, Musk's personal net worth was still as high as $266 billion.

After becoming the richest man, Musk was repeatedly "forced to donate". Since late October, U.S. lawmakers and international organizations have spoken out to demand that Musk come up with some of his personal wealth.

In response, Musk has repeatedly "shrugged back" on Twitter, and even mocked 80-year-old US Senator Bernie Sanders: "I always forgot that you are still alive." ”

Electrek posted after Musk was selected as the Person of the Year that Musk's tweets were too rude, "Although many people on the team are Tesla owners, the topics musk posted on Twitter about vaccines, taxes, the stock market, fart jokes and other topics will have a huge impact, often negative." ”

3

Influencers

On the night of December 9, Musk asked netizens for advice on Twitter, saying: "I am considering quitting all my jobs and being an Internet celebrity wholeheartedly, what do you think?" ”

With Musk's identity and way of doing things, it's really hard not to become an influencer.

"The way finance works now is that the value of things is not based on cash flow, but on how close they are to Elon Musk." Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine once wrote in the article.

Time magazine mentioned in the article that Musk has 66 million Twitter followers, and every move may trigger a carnival across the network. Just a few days ago, Musk was a "Tony teacher" on Twitter, cutting a new shape for himself, which once again triggered crazy retweets and comments from netizens.

In China, Musk's influence cannot be underestimated. According to incomplete statistics, in 2021 alone, before being named the person of the year, Musk has been on 74 Weibo hot searches.

This includes selling stocks, selling houses, running universities, etc., as well as slightly bizarre remarks such as mocking apple polishing cloths, heartbreak expressions, Chinese seven-step poems. On November 2 alone, Musk was on Weibo's hot search four times for "Chinese seven-step poem". Musk's unusual words and deeds have attracted huge traffic, and he has even been jokingly called "10G surfers" by netizens.

After becoming Time Magazine's 2021 Person of the Year, Musk retweeted Time magazine-related tweets and wrote a comment "Thank you."

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