Elon Musk was declared “Person of the Year” by both TIME magazine and The Financial Times this week, sparking praise from his most ardent supporters and outcry from those who liken the Tesla founder to something of a comic book super-villain.
“I think it’s less about him being a villain and more about him being a person who has lost touch with reality,” The Daily Beast’s Noor Ibrahim said on Friday’s The World This Week. “I think the tremendous amount of success he’s had and the power that he wields has created some kind of monster, really. This is someone who lives in his own bubble and I don’t know if he realizes that what he says has such a big impact,” she added, referring to recent backlash the entrepreneur has received over his COVID remarks and a tweet in which he said he keeps “forgetting” that Bernie Sanders is “still alive.”
For his part, The Independent’s correspondent Borzou Daragahi said that he thinks “Elon Musk is not just the person of the year but the person of the era… he’s symptomatic of our era of polarization and inequality and adoration and the extremely unhealthy power of the super, super rich.”
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Summing up her thoughts on the exhausting news cycle surrounding Musk and his seemingly endless stream of controversies, NZ’s Catherine Field said: “Listen, the guy leaves me cold. He doesn’t pay enough taxes, he’s got all these cars, and he’s now going to Germany to teach Germans how to make cars. Good luck with that!”
Watch the full The World This Week episode on France 24.
