On Monday, Time Magazine announced Elon Musk as its 2021 ‘Person of the Year,’ citing his vast “influence on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too.” Musk, deemed the second-richest man in world by Forbes Magazine with an estimated net worth of $270 billion, is the founder and CEO of rocket producer SpaceX and CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla, among his many other enterprises.

Time Editor-in-Chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal said the choice of Musk for Person of the Year recognizes his emergence “not just as the world’s richest person but also as perhaps the richest example of a massive shift in our society” in which momentum to create progress is moving from “traditional institutions” such as governments to individuals. Felsenthal added that Musk’s “ambitions on the scale of interplanetary travel” marks him as someone whose influence goes beyond life on Earth to “potentially life off Earth too.”  He concluded: “For creating solutions to an existential crisis, for embodying the possibilities and the perils of the age of tech titans, for driving society’s most daring and disruptive transformations, Elon Musk is Time’s 2021 Person of the Year.”

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