Elon Musk: SA Born Entrepreneur Named Time's 'Most Influential Person' of 2021
- Pretoria-born entrepreneur and business magnate Elon Musk has been voted Time's 2021 Person of the Year
- Musk boasts a net worth of more than R4 trillion, confirming him as the world's wealthiest private citizen
- His wealth soared due in part to Tesla's stock price, with the car company now valued at R16 trillion
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In what could quite possibly have been an easy guess for some, inventor, creator, thinker, and all-around marvel in the world of business in America, Elon Musk, has earned himself the crown of Time magazine's 2021 Person of the Year.
A well-earned title considering the wealth the Pretoria-born serial entrepreneur has amassed, particularly during what has arguably been the most challenging year for the world.
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Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX – his start-up rocket company which has leapfrogged Boeing and others fancying their giant statuses to claim a huge stake in the world's spacefaring future – need only to snap his fingers for the stock market to soar or plummet as has now become lore.
Time reported that the business magnate, boasting a net worth of more than $250 billion (about R4 trillion) which confirms him as the wealthiest private citizen in history, controls two-thirds of the multibillion-dollar electric car market with his company Tesla, which on its own is valued at $1 tn (R16 trillion).
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Modern society's shapeshifter
It comes as little surprise that his wealth on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index is greater than South Africa's gross domestic product (GDP), which reportedly totalled $301.9 billion last year, according to data derived from the World Bank's data.
CNN reported that Musk this year launched the first-ever mission to Earth's orbit with a crew comprising only tourists and no professional astronauts, with his banner year reaching beyond the stratosphere much in the same way as Tesla's stock price.
"Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth. In 2021, he emerged not just as the world's richest person but as the richest example of a massive shift in our society," said Edward Felsenthal, Time magazine's editor-in-chief.
Musk's unusual haircut gives internet giggles
Elsewhere, Briefly News recently reported that Musk's newest haircut had the internet in stitches. The Tesla CEO seems to have shaved his head but kept a good amount of hair chilling on the top in a wavy form.
After Kanye West's peculiar haircut, it seems that peeps are now paying more attention to how the rich and famous wear their locks. The 50-year-old lost quite a bit of hair back in the day and now the Twitterverse is discussing the possibility of hair plugs.
Tweeps also shared images of pop culture faves to make comparisons to Musk's new style. Some netizens even posted snaps of North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jung-un. A post about Musk's new cut was shared on Twitter by @TravisAllen02 and gained over 2 600 likes.
Source: Briefly News
