Elon Musk has joined the likes of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mohandas Gandhi, and Winston Churchill as he’s been named TIME’s Person of the Year.
Apparently the first automotive executive to win the honor since Walter P. Chrysler in 1928, Musk was praised for everything from being the “richest man in the world” to “live-tweet[ing] his poops.”
That’s kind of crappy, but his profile went on to say “He tosses satellites into orbit and harnesses the sun; he drives a car he created that uses no gas and barely needs a driver.” Most of those things are true, but the latter certainly isn’t as there are six levels of automation and Tesla’s semi-autonomous driving system is a big old #2.
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Elon Musk (@elonmusk) is TIME's 2021 Person of the Year #TIMEPOY https://t.co/8Y5BhIldNs pic.twitter.com/B6h6rndjIh
— TIME (@TIME) December 13, 2021
Putting the poop jokes aside, the profile gushes that Musk is a “man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit.” It goes on to call him a “clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, [and] showman” as well as a “madcap hybrid of Thomas Edison, P.T. Barnum, Andrew Carnegie and Watchmen’s Doctor Manhattan.”
Of course, the profile also noted plenty of controversies ranging from claims of sexual harassment and poor working conditions at this companies, an alarming number of crashes involving Autopilot, and personal behavior described as “petty, cruel and petulant.” It goes onto highlight his early skepticism about the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic and Tesla’s blatant disregard for health orders to shutdown his Fremont assembly plant.
While that’s just scratching the surface, the profile notes “Many people are described as larger than life, but few deserve it.” Regardless of how you feel about the outspoken executive, it’s hard to disagree with that.