After another year of pandemic mitigation measures, vaccine rollouts and health care inequalities, Time magazine announced its Person of the Year for 2021. Last year’s selection of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Arguably, there were a bunch of health care workers who have spent the past two years protecting America—and the world—from Covid-19. But instead of correcting that lapse this year, time decided to make it worse by choosing the world’s richest man. For its 2021 honor: Elon Musk.
Time’s writeup claims that Musk is “easily cast as an arrogant supervillain,” but argues that such negative profiling does not capture how he is using his wealth and power. Is.
time writing Musk claims to be “easily cast as an arrogant observer,” but argues that such a negative profiling does not hold that he wants to rejuvenate America’s space program and build an electric vehicle. How is using its money and power to build the company. Like many of Musk’s other profiles that try to sound alike, this feature outlines some of the challenges facing Musk and his companies: the lawsuits have led to a deep allegation. culture of racism In Tesla, reports burnout culture More at SpaceX increasing scrutiny of autopilot, just to name a few. But ultimately these issues are sidelined – the price to pay for a billionaire “talent” who is building our collective future.
The magazine is quite clear about this. “The man of the future where technology makes all things possible is a return to our glorious industrial past,” it said, “with America stagnating and shutting down regulations, restrictions, borders, barriers, and production of anything but Facebook.” before doing.” In short, we need Elon Musk to save us, regardless of the cost. But is it true?
After the 2008 financial crisis, Silicon Valley became a beacon of hope for the US economy. The gospel of tech – “go fast and break things” – was soon implemented in any industry with the hope that it would produce positive results. (It should go without saying that the past few years have taught us otherwise.)
After founding SpaceX in 2002 and taking over as Tesla’s CEO in 2008, Musk was well placed to become one of the tech’s American innovation figures. He graced the cover of countless magazines, was the subject of glossy profiles and was favorable comparison Iron Man superhero played by billionaire weapons creator Tony Stark and Robert Downey Jr in Marvel’s films. Musk also made a cameo in the 2010 sequel.
Musk was credited with creating the electric vehicle industry, even though the major automakers were working on your own electric vehicles And the government was trying to fuel Tesla’s growth — including funding the company’s expansion. $465 million loan in 2009.
Meanwhile, SpaceX was built on idea That humanity should colonize Mars, and Musk worked backwards from that premise to determine whether that could make it a reality. In the process, SpaceX has Accused of overworking and underpaying his employees (it settled Class Action Sue in 2017 for $4 Million), and it was alleged in a recent trial of racial discrimination And retaliation against an employee who had reported sexual harassment. In Texas, SpaceX angered some residents As Musk wants Starbase to rename a field, as he tests rockets much longer than authorized and as he builds next to a wildlife refuge, Allegedly without proper permits, Musk has also been accused that his Starlink satellites are “a form ofastro-colonialism,
The entrepreneur claims to be motivated by the need to “preserve the light of consciousness” by making humanity a “multiplanetary” species. But it’s a quest he’s imposed above us, with little public debate about whether this is a desirable future or whether it is the right time to funnel resources into such a goal.
And he has no shortage of resources. Even though he sees himself as an enterprising, self-made man, Musk and his companies are the product of huge public subsidies. A 2015 Los Angeles Times article calculated that Musk had Benefited from $4.9 billion in government subsidies And that SpaceX had received $5.5 billion more in contracts from NASA and the Air Force. which includes a $1.6 billion contract In 2008, which Musk admitted saved SpaceX from collapse. their companies received a lot since then, even though he pays very little tax,
Still, as Musk’s net worth has grown, he is strongly opposed to plans to pay billionaires slightly more to fund public programs to address issues such as climate change and social inequalities. Musk opposes plan to tax billionaires on the Democrats’ legislative agenda this year. More recently, he said that the Build Back Better Act should not pass, and they have opposed additional electric vehicle subsidies.
Musk says he’s against subsidies, but they have benefited a lot from them, He still supports federal help for space initiatives like going to Mars. while he talks about a big game “Crazy” Budget DeficitThis is not a doctrinal protest – it is an attempt to suffocate the competition.
The decision of the times can be seen as a continuation of a decade-plus trend of building the media to Musk Up to be our savior.
So when Time says that Musk deserves his top honor because of his bold vision for the future, do we really need the future? As the climate crisis intensifies, poor countries punish the rich over “vaccine apartheid” and chronic problems stemming from the unequal distribution of wealth continue to grow, is there any point in recognizing someone who is more than the stars? stubbornly refuses to take its eyes off – accumulating at all times a vast amount of money that can be deployed to help solve those issues?
The decision of the times can be seen as a continuation of a decade-plus trend of building the media to Musk Up to be our savior. We can also see it as a continuation of the romantic Silicon Valley narrative that technology will still save us. (Salesforce CEO and spacex investors Marc Benioff Bought Time in 2018, and the Valley’s Power Players Are Trying offer a renewed optimism this year.)
But maybe it’s not that complicated either. Maybe at a time when the culture is trying to prosper on speculative cryptocurrencies wild changes As with Musk’s tweets and when a pandemic has exposed our deepest inequalities (and how hard it is to persuade powerful people to address them), declaring Elon Musk Person of the Year is actually totally Understood.