Elon Musk for Time's Person of the Year is Controversial to Say the Least

Hear! Hear! Elon Musk is Time's Person of the Year!

I gather congrats are in order? Right?

Yet, people keep asking if Elon is a good choice for the Person of the Year all over social media. Everybody has their own choice that deserves it more.

Instead of asking and analyzing WHAT FOR, we're preoccupied with WHY NOT. Luckily for Elon, we don't have 13 Reasons Why, but "just" three, according to The Guardian:

1. attitude to tax,
2. opposition to unions and
3. playing down the dangers of Covid-19

As this year's Noonies2021 Awards Nominee in the Business, Entrepreneur, and Entrepreneurship categories, I'm biased as hell. So, I'm not going to delve into these controversies. Instead, I have a very simple and honest question for all of us.

When was the Last Time We had an Entrepreneur for TIME's POY?

Here's a link to the list of all Time's Persons of the year (1927-2019). We all know who was/were the Person(s) of the Year in 2020, don't we?

Well, it's not a long list, and that's what makes it so prestigious. There's no right word to describe the choice in 1938.

Moving on. Here's a list of Time's People of the Year choices that "qualify" as entrepreneurs:

2010 - Mark Zuckerberg

2005 - Bill Gates (philanthropy!)

1999 - Jeff Bezos

1997 - Andrew Grove

1955 - Harlow Curtice

1928 - Walter Chrysler

I guess this makes Elon Musk the Time's "seventh son." For the record: a terrible movie with an amazing cast.

The simple math says 109 names in total. "Only" seven, give it or take, from the world of business. OK. We, the business people, have to live with it.

Are You Here Only For The Memes?

It’s easier to make a meme than to make something that can take us into space. Again, luckily for Elon, he likes them, he uses them himself a lot. And, he takes them as they come on Twitter.

The magazine emphasised that its annual acknowledgment was not an award, but rather, “recognition of the person who had the most influence on the events of the year, for good or for ill”. (The Guardian)

What's that even supposed to mean?

The magazine also noted the sway Musk holds over an army of loyal followers (and investors) on social media, where he skewers the powerful and also regulators attempting to keep in check an executive that is far from traditional.

I think that this would be the only and the most appropriate meme.

I didn't think so.

In January, "SpaceX would attempt to launch its futuristic, bullet-shaped Starship to orbit." In the meantime, "Nasa has (already) contracted SpaceX to use Starship to deliver astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2025."

Yet, Time is more preoccupied with Elon's tweets than Tesla's cars. One thing, though, even Time just couldn't ignore in their conclusion:

This is the man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit.

And, that's why Elon Musk may turn out to be not only the man of this year, but the man of the century.