Financial Times Follows Time Magazine in Calling Elon Musk Person of the Year

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Financial Times (FT), following Time magazine, on Wednesday named billionaire and founder of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, its person of the year.

The newspaper called Musk's Tesla electric cars a major achievement, saying that over a decade Musk has "single-handedly" created a market for electric vehicles, fighting bankruptcy, Wall Street and the American regulators. Musk made electric cars mainstream and was followed by the largest vehicle manufacturers, including Mercedes-Benz, Ford, Volkswagen, and others.

"For a long time, the rest of the auto industry was basically calling Tesla and me fools and frauds. They were saying electric cars wouldn’t work, you can’t achieve the range and performance. And even if you did that, nobody would buy them," Musk said as quoted by the FT.

The newspaper also highlighted Musk's hyperactivity on Twitter, experience with the creation of the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, and the revival of space exploration in the United States, calling Musk "the most genuinely innovative entrepreneur of his generation".

On Monday, Time magazine also named Musk its 2021 person of the year, saying that Musk "aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit." The magazine opined that few have had such an impact and influence as Musk.