Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has been named Time magazine's 2021 Person of the Year, they announced on Monday morning.
Musk became the first person to ever be worth more than $300 billion, while Tesla has become a trillion-dollar company over the last year, and his startup rocket company SpaceX has become the leader in American space exploration.
Time's editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal spoke about the decision to choose Musk after his very influential 2021.
"Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too," Felsenthal wrote. "In 2021, Musk emerged not just as the world's richest person but also as perhaps the richest example of a massive shift in our society."
Additionally, Musk has developed a strong following on Twitter with more than 66 million followers. His tweets range from attempts at simple humor, to causing massive rifts in the cryptocurrency industry, to selling more than $5 billion of Tesla stock after conducting a poll on Twitter.
The 50-year-old also revealed that he has Asperger's while hosting "Saturday Night Live" in May.
"We don't yet know how fully Tesla, SpaceX and the ventures Musk has yet to think up will change our lives," Felsenthal said. "At 50, he has plenty of time to write the future, his own and ours. Like it or not, we are now in Musk's world."
He recently launched an all-civilian, non-astronaut crew for a SpaceX flight in September, and hopes to open that opportunity to more people in the future. While Tesla plans to build a humanoid robot and aims to have a prototype ready in 2022.
Musk's ambition and polarizing personality will not slow down any time soon. Felensthal explained how he stands out among rich entrepreneurs by re-shaping the lives of many over the last year.
Time also honored four scientists who developed mRNA vaccines as 2021's Heroes of the Year and praised them for a "breakthrough of singular importance" that's helping protect millions of people against COVID-19.
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