Elon Musk has received the award of Time Person of the Year as a result of the amount of achievements he has reached throughout the year and throughout his professional lifetime. He has been named the most influential person of 2021.

At the beginning of 2021, Musk became the richest man in the world due to the increase of Tesla stock sales. By January, Tesla shares were up by 720%.

Musk is also CEO of SpaceX which contributes to the reasons for receiving the award. The company launched the very first mission consisting solely of tourists and no professional astronauts.

“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,” Time editor in chief Edward Felsenthal said.

Felsenthal continues to write of Musk possibly being the best representative of a massively shifting world and society.

“I feel that he is classified as someone who cares deeply about everyone and the environment, Tesla, but I know there was some stuff said and done by him that goes against this,” junior Eric Opara said.

This specific award has a reputation of being given to people with surrounding controversies. Musk has been labeled as controversial due to his Twitter history.

Lately, he has been involved in a controversy based on the use of an insult directed towards Senator Ron Wyden. The insult was used on Musk’s Twitter account with more than 66 million followers. Musk tweeted this for Wyden being in support of a billionaires tax that would cause billionaires to pay taxes when certain stocks rise.

Towards the start of the COVID pandemic, Musk was involved in another altercation due to the downplay given by him regarding the virus. He decided to advance in opening a Tesla plant again and contributed to many cases in the Bay Area.

Last year, the award was given to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for their victory in the 2020 presidential election that simultaneously received backlash.