… Elon Musk. It’s not a prize but recognition of some facts
When nominating a Person of the Year, the first challenge is always the same: people assume it’s a prize and bristle at the idea of miscreants being recognized. I still remember the uproar when Time Magazine named Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini Man of the Year in 1979 as he was holding dozens of Americans hostage and tanking the reelection campaign of Jimmy Carter (who died this week at 100). Time explained that the choice was about “impact,” but the public wasn’t buying it. People figured there had to be a limit – surely they wouldn’t name Adolf Hitler Man of the Year? Well, yes they would, and did, in 1938 — a month after Kristallnacht. It’s an annoying paradigm, but I’ll stick with it: This title isn’t a prize, but about influence.
So if the available candidates include the unpleasant, the obvious choice for 2024 would be Donald Trump. He’s set to become the oldest president in US history if he completes his term, edging out Joe Biden, who’ll retire at a sprightly 82 and two months — five months younger than Trump will be if he finishes out his upcoming term.
Trump is also the first president to be reelected (albeit non-sequentially) despite felony convictions (34 of them) and impeachments (two). He’s the only president since World War II to reject the world order built by the US after that conflict — and he basically hates the US government. He rejects climate science, thinks tariffs are the “most beautiful word in the dictionary” (while not understanding how they work – he thinks “China pays”), and is uniquely unfit, ignorant, boorish, and dangerous. His return to the White House is a bone-crushing repudiation of what the Democrats put on the table (or what was perceived as such). Yet Trump might also bring great things. His impulsive nature could somehow lead to an end to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East (as we discussed here). Life is strange that way.
But Trump is too easy a choice. Our pick rises above the quotidian. Our Person of the Year is someone without whom Trump would probably not have been reelected at all: Elon Musk.
This ties into the signature trends of 2024: the rise of anti-liberalism and the backlash against perceived progressive ridiculousness. In election after election, voters demonstrated how little they care about the principles of liberal democracy that Western elites hold dear. All over the world authoritarians seem either ascendent or accepted, and the politics of grievance and nonsense prevail. At the same time, it’s a year of backlash against so-called progressivism. Over the past decade, progressive movements dominated U.S. culture but overreached—with absurd firings over imagined slights, and policies that alienate the mainstream, like encouraging children to explore gender transition. This year marked a dramatic rollback of DEI and other such efforts, which aided Trump’s victory.
And Musk? He was at the center of both trends. He bought Twitter (now X) several years ago, seemingly for no good financial reason, and turned it into a political juggernaut for the right. Musk has over 200 million followers — the largest audience on X — and his posts amplify anti-woke and anti-liberal rhetoric that resonate with the masses.
His willingness to say totally outrageous and ridiculous things, especially on social media, are not just a sign of our superficial and vulgar times – they are a caricature that is accurate and grotesque in equal measure. He accused someone publicly and baselessly of being a “pedo,” has said “civil war” is inevitable in the UK, has advocated for the German fascist party AfD and was an extreme COVID skeptic, stating in March 2020 that “the coronavirus panic is dumb” while predicting there would be “close to zero” new cases in the US within a month. His greatest genius is paying no price for any of it.
Instead, Musk is absurdly wealthy: With a fortune of $440 billion, he’s on track to become the world’s first trillionaire, making him the richest person (by purchasing power) in human history. But what makes Musk particularly deserving of this title is his uncanny ability to tap into the zeitgeist, get what he wants, and innovate (or at least quickly attach himself to innovations of others) on a scale few can rival.
Consider his tech track record:
- Tesla: Musk revolutionized the auto industry by making electric vehicles mainstream, forcing even legacy automakers to follow his lead.
- SpaceX: He turned private space exploration into a reality, from reusable rockets to Starlink satellites providing internet in conflict zones like Ukraine.
- Neuralink: Musk is pushing the boundaries of brain-computer interfaces, paving the way for a new frontier in healthcare and human cognition.
- PayPal: Musk co-founded X.com in 1999, an online payment company that later became PayPal after a merger (yup!). His vision and strategy helped revolutionize digital payments, making PayPal a household name and one of the earliest successful fintech platforms. When PayPal was acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, Musk’s share provided the financial foundation for his future ventures.
- He has steered clear of trendy tech rabbit holes – the ones that we too, in this publication, have been skeptical of. He has expressed doubt about the practicality and relevance of Web3, calling it more of a “marketing buzzword” than a tangible technology and questioning the ability of decentralized applications to deliver meaningful benefits over existing systems, often pointing out the speculative nature of many blockchain projects. Musk has also criticized the metaverse concept, particularly its immersive, virtual-reality-driven vision, stating that he doesn’t see people wearing VR headsets for extended periods and dismissing the idea as “more hype than substance.”Yet Musk is also a walking contradiction. He’s an immigrant businessman who hugely supported Trump – whose signature policy proposals, other than the anti-business tariffs, is expelling millions of immigrants. He leads a company centered on clean energy while aligning with climate change deniers. And now he’s been tapped by Trump to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with cutting perhaps 2 trillion dollars from the federal budget. If Musk succeeds, millions of middle-income Americans could lose their jobs, and many more could be impoverished as entitlement programs are slashed. Rather bad karma there: The world’s richest man will bring ruin to the class that overwhelmingly backed Trump.
He is also estranged from Vivian Jenna Wilson, his transgender offspring, who stated she no longer wished to be related to her biological father in any way. In an interview five months ago, he referred to his child as “dead … killed by the woke mind virus.” Musk says he was once mostly liberal, and if this is the source of his flip, then few transgenders have had a greater impact on the world. But while Musk’s hatred of wokeness may make some sense, it is extraordinary to disown your child, and not the mark of a very nice person.
Musk is more than just not nice: He’s impulsive, hypocritical, often dead wrong and most definitely dangerous. But he is undeniably impactful and he embodies the spirit of 2024: Chaotic, disruptive, irreverent, and in tune with cultural climate that may be steering us all straight off a cliff. He is the face of the times – the nonsense and malice of 2024, but perhaps also some promise in 2025. And that’s why he’s our Person of the Year.
