Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, is the “person of the year” for the prestigious English newspaper Financial Times for his work in transforming the electric car industry.
In this way, in less than a week, Musk has been awarded a similar award twice, as the American magazine Time did the same.
Tesla, the world leader in electric cars, has prompted many young consumers and other traditional automakers to shift their approach and target the use and production of ecars, says the Financial times among the arguments for awarding Musk the award.
FT editor Roula Khalaf says in his column that Musk “proved that electric vehicles can replace cars” whose engine runs on gasoline “and called him” a man who has been a revolutionary in the industry. “
“For decades, the auto industry basically called Tesla and me fools and fraudulent,” Musk said in an interview that the FT himself did a few months ago and that has been recovered to accompany the award decision.
“They said that electric cars would not work, that they cannot achieve autonomy, speed or performance and that even if all that were achieved, no one would buy them,” added the CEO.
Today, Musk is the richest person in the world, and his company is worth more than $ 1 trillion, a valuation that makes it more valuable than the giants Ford and General Motors combined.
Tesla’s Elon Musk: person of the year and controversies
Beyond these two awards, in recent weeks, Musk has not seen much favor.
Democratic representatives in the US Senate, for example, are demanding that the stocks and marketable assets of billionaires like Musk be taxed, drawing strong criticism from the CEO of Tesla.
in particular, Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic US senator, said Musk should pay taxes and stop “taking advantage of everyone else.” That was hours after Time named him “person of the year.”
Musk responded on Twitter: “And if you open your eyes for two seconds, you would realize that in 2021 I will pay more taxes than any American in history.”
Beyond what is deserved or not, the truth is that Musk is a public figure who walks through the most important TV shows in the United States, such as “Saturday Night Live” and who publishes high-impact tweets related to cryptocurrencies that have generated abrupt changes in that market.
As happened this week with the value of Dogecoin, an asset that the CEO of Tesla mentioned as a possible means of payment for the brand’s products and whose price increased 25 percent a few minutes after the publication of Musk’s tweet.