Tesla CEO Elon Musk gestures as he visits the construction site of Tesla’s Gigafactory in Gruenheide near Berlin, Germany on August 13, 2021. Patrick Pleul / Pool via Reuters

December 13 (Reuters) – Tesla (TSLA.O) CEO Elon Musk was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2021, a year that saw his electric car maker become the automaker world’s most valuable and its rocket company soar to the edge of space with an all-civilian crew.

Musk is also the founder and CEO of SpaceX, and heads brainchip startup Neuralink and infrastructure company The Boring Company. Tesla’s market value has soared to over $ 1,000 billion this year, making it more valuable than Ford Motor (FN) and General Motors (GM.N) combined.

Tesla produces hundreds of thousands of cars each year and has been able to avoid supply chain problems better than many of its rivals, while pushing many young consumers to switch to electric cars and traditional automakers to focus on electric vehicles.

“For creating solutions to an existential crisis, for embodying the possibilities and dangers of the age of tech titans, for driving the most daring and disruptive transformations in society, Elon Musk is the person of the year 2021 of TIME, “said the magazine’s editor-in-chief. , said Edward Felsenthal.

“Even Elon Musk’s space adventures are a direct line to the very first character of the year, Charles Lindbergh, whom the editors selected in 1927 to commemorate his historic first solo transatlantic flight over the Atlantic.”

From hosting Saturday Night Live to posting tweets about cryptocurrencies and memes stocks that sparked massive moves in their value, Musk has topped the headlines and amassed over 66 million Twitter followers. .

Some of his tweets have also been subject to regulatory review in the past.

According to the magazine, “Person of the Year” means someone “who has most affected the news or our lives, for better or for worse.”

Time magazine named teenage pop singer Olivia Rodrigo “Artist of the Year”, American gymnast Simone Biles “Athlete of the Year” and vaccine scientists were named “Hero of the Year”.

Last year, US President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris jointly received the title of “Person of the Year.” The time began this tradition in 1927. Facebook CEO (FB.O) Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon (AMZN.O) founder Jeff Bezos have also received the title in the past.

Reporting by Nivedita Balu and Chavi Mehta in Bangalore; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty

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