Elon Musk's latest achievement is out of this world.
The world's richest person and Tesla CEO has been chosen as Time's 2021 Person of the Year, the publication announced on Monday, Dec. 13. "Person of the Year is a marker of influence," the magazine's editor-in-chief, Edward Felsenthal, wrote. "And few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially off Earth, too. In 2021, Musk emerged not just as the world's richest person but also as perhaps the richest example of a massive shift in our society."
This year, not only has the SpaceX engineer emerged on top regarding his wealth, he has also continued to launch his aerospace company to new heights. In 2020, SpaceX became the first private company to send astronauts to orbit and this past September, the company saw its first launch of an all-private crew into orbit.
"I feel as though we've had many years of success and a lot of people at the company have never seen a launch failure," Elon told Time. "A lot of people have never in their career experienced a recession."
"If somebody entered the workforce after 2009," he continued, "It just seemed like things always go up. I was concerned that we may be getting complacent."
However, the 50-year-old entrepreneur not only saw himself at the center of the tech world this year (when Tesla became a trillion-dollar company), but he also ventured into the world of entertainment when he hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live back in May.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were both named Time's Person of the Year in 2020.