Time magazine’s decision to make Tesla millionaire Elon Musk his man of the year 2021 has been criticized for his attitude toward taxation, opposition to unions and contempt for Covid-19.
Musk, who is also the founder and chief executive officer of space exploration SpaceX, recently named Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the richest man in the world as rising Tesla stock prices increased his profits to nearly $ 300bn.
Describing him as “artist, intellectual, edgelord, exhibitor, industrialist, exhibitor”, Time quotes Musk’s efforts, from his founding of SpaceX in 2002, to his hand in building a separate power company SolarCity over Tesla. , the world’s most valuable car company.
But respect has been widely criticized in the United States when Musk is a controversial figure because of his tax-exempt attitude, as opposed to the “billions” tax floating by some. He, along with some of the world’s richest men, paid only a small amount of taxes compared to the significant increase in his total wealth between 2014 and 2018 according to a Republican survey this year, when Musk paid an “real” amount of 3.27%. Although legal, prices reflect the failure of U.S. tax laws to charge an increase in asset earnings in the form of wages – the main source of income for most Americans – taxable.
Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote on Twitter that the Time decision emphasized the need for the tax code to be changed “so that the person of the year will pay taxes and stop uploading free for everyone”.
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Robert Reich, who worked as Clinton’s government secretary for labor, said the announcement was a good time to remind people that he was “illegally threatening to take stock options if union workers”, which is clearly referring to the 2019 National Labor Relations Board’s findings. a tweet in which Musk wrote: “why do you pay unions and give up stock options for free?”.
Musk also won the controversy in 2020 by mitigating the dangers of Covid in a series of tweets and initially kept his factory in northern California open despite a local “shelter” order, before suspending production later. Author Kurt Eichenwald said it was “the worst decision ever made”.
The magazine stressed that its annual recognition was not an award, but rather, “a recognition of the one who had the greatest influence on the events of the year, good or bad”.
The magazine also noted that Musk has led an army of loyal followers (and investors) on social media, where he criticizes powerful people and administrators who try to look away from the traditional leader.
Using his 66 million followers on Twitter, he offers extraordinary advice to the world and drives even his followers and investors crazy because of the fast-paced markets. He was sued by stock market regulators for writing in 2018 about taking Tesla privately, and alleging correspondence with Tesla this year that the other two tweets had not been previously approved by the company’s lawyers, as required by a court ruling in a previous case.
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Although profitable in recent years, Tesla is the world’s most important automotive company, sometimes this year exceeding the $ 1tn monetization threshold. Traditional heavy duty metals such as Ford and General Motors combined cost less than $ 200bn.
Musk said last month SpaceX would try to launch its bullet-proof Starship to orbit in January. Nasa has a SpaceX contract to use Starship to bring astronauts into space on the moon in early 2025. Musk said he plans to use recycled vessels to eventually settle people on Mars.
Time has highlighted Musk’s recent acceptance on Twitter that part of his tweets were “made in a clay pot”. In his provocative manager’s profile, Time went on to write about one of those toilet storms in detail before concluding: “This is the man who is aiming to save our planet and find a new home for us.”
The poll was asked on Twitter, by users who suggested that some figures may be eligible for recognition this year.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the characters of the Time magazine – or people – of 2020.
Time has designated a person of the year since 1927. The election should be “one person but sometimes many people have had a huge impact on the country and the world during the calendar year”, the magazine says. Appointment is not really honorable. On the contrary, it identifies values “that have influenced the good news, good or bad,” according to the magazine.