Times magazine declares Elon Musk the person of the year.
A short analysis of the man turned legend and his impact on the economy.
Hello dear friends of leofinance, I hope you are all very well and are having a very merry Christmas.
Today I want to talk to you about a topic, [and I say topic because that's what it has become, a topic of study in itself] that is very controversial, this is Elon Reeve Musk. And before I continue talking about Elon musk I must clarify, that with just a little research on the subject, you will begin to notice that there are many interpretations of him, there are many biographies where a villain, others where he is a hero... there are points in his story where truth and lies are mixed, where it is not known if something is propaganda, or a fiction invented by his adversaries... and as I do not want to turn something into another of those articles that want to say much and end up clarifying nothing.... I will limit myself to the verifiable facts and my interpretation of them....
Born on June 28th in Pretoria South Africa, Elon Musk, in the bosom of a family that although it was not poor, on the contrary, his father was a successful engineer and co-owner of an emerald mine, not for that reason he had difficulties, the relationship of his parents, was far from ideal, there was domestic violence, if we add to this that from an early age it was noticeable how different was the little Elon, Today we know that Elon Musk is a moderate case of Asperger's, an autistic type disorder, although mild in his case, but in the 80s in South Africa I don't think anyone cared about that, much less the classic school bullies who beat little Elon, on one occasion to the point that he required hospitalization.
None of this stopped little Elon, who at the age of 20 had already earned his first $500 thanks to his great vision and ingenuity selling the code for a video game.... after the separation of his parents he lived for a while with his father in South Africa, but when he reached 17, the age of compulsory military service he went to Canada to his mother, from there he went to the United States to continue his studies, and during a road trip with his brother they talked a lot about the idea of founding a business together... this eventually led to the creation of Zyp2, the first commercial address locator service on the internet... think of it as the first google maps. And well... from there on it's all history.
One version of this great story is the one believed by many who see Elon Musk as a modern day hero, a sort of real life Tony Stark... irreverent, brilliant and with an innate desire for freedom for all... in this version Elon Musk's achievements are the product of a man with a superior intellect, who is almost like he came from the future, he single handedly founded companies that today we think are part of the solution to save humanity...
In the following video we can see a summarized version of all of Elon Musk's accomplishments, told the way many people see it.
The video shows us a good reference of Elon Musk's time frames and major accomplishments... but omits important parts of the story... some of his failures, his mistakes, and the fact that Elon Musk... is like fire... he does not create, nor destroy... but he does transform and sometimes the process by which he does so is very controversial, he has made many enemies along the way, and has made moves on others quite questionable, for one thing... the legend of the founding of Zip2 is not what many want to make it look like, apparently, he received a lot of help not only from his brother, but also financially from his father, and his father's friends who advised him and introduced him in the business world, he did not found Paypal as such... although he helped a lot to boost it to what it is today, and he did not found Tesla, the company that today has made him the richest man in the world, he was an initial investor and used his powerful initial investment to gradually take control of the company, trampling on his way to the original founders of the idea and the company... in the following video we can see a documentary about all those moments in which Elon Musk did some really questionable things...
And the second part
In this version of the story... Elon Musk is a villain, a sociopath, despot and ruthless businessman, who doesn't care who he has to take down to satiate his interplanetary ambition... better said, he is not a villain, in this version of the story Elon Musk fills almost all the requirements to be a Comic Book Supervillain...
But what if history is not white... or black... but full of gray areas... well when opinions lead us up and down without giving us a firm ground to start making measurements we have to start basing ourselves purely on the facts, and what they tell us.
Certainly Elon Musk had a lot of help to found Zip2, the first venture that made him earn millions, but that does not make him less of a genius, on this planet there have been many geniuses who have ended their lives alone and in misery, Nikola Tesla for example, for not having apart from his genius for science and the relentless ability for business of Elon Musk...
He didn't found paypal either, but all the conflicts he generated within it helped put it on the map, and the concept he was defending turned out to be true...
And tesla, which he practically took out of the hands of the original creators with his money, might never have been able to fight the fuel lobby if it hadn't had a sociopath who cares little about the consequences of his actions leading the charge...
Recall that for decades, the fossil fuel lobby had been responsible for delaying or discrediting projects aimed at creating truly viable electric vehicles... how Elon Musk managed to win that war? little do we know about it... but his name resonated a lot, and they respect that everywhere today...
Many of those who have worked closely with the man complain that his treatment of others is lousy, and that keeping up a work pace like his is exhausting... and he demands it of others... well, without this pressure, the breakthrough in battery technology needed to make Tesla work would have been possible... and that eventually led to the breakthrough in battery technology needed to make Tesla work? which eventually led to the breakthrough of power banks to store the product of solar panels for long periods of time, maybe it would have been possible, but not in this decade... they are not Elon Musk whipping his work team...
NASA by 2011 had given space exploration up for dead, SpaceX, with origins that are almost suitable for a social comedy-critique movie [like that time Elon Musk traveled to Russia to buy a Russian ballistic missile, and came back empty-handed, not because the Russians didn't want to sell, but because he didn't like the price, but with the idea of making his rockets https://www. inverse.com/article/34976-spacex-ceo-elon-musk-tried-to-buy-icbm-rockets-from-russia] revitalized the space race in the United States, and there is no longer talk of whether or not to go to Mars... but when... thanks to Elon Musk and his psychotic obsession with conquering space...
So for me... Elon Musk reminds me of that phrase I heard years ago and I don't even know where...
Great Men don't have to be good'.
Elon Musk is the Eminem of the business world... erratic, controversial, problematic, someone you'd want to work with but wouldn't want to put up with, it's tough, but when you measure his accomplishments, you go to the metrics... it's like when you listen to Rap God by Eminem, there's just no way anyone can deny his incredible talent....
That's the version of the Elon Musk story that I like... the one with various shades, the one about the kid who didn't understand how he could know so many things and suffer for it and see others happy knowing so little... the one about the man who grew up cold, calculating and talented, but doesn't want to be alone, the one about the terrible entrepreneur who has put humanity back on the path of progress at the cost of many careers and lifestyles....
Today Elon Musk can use all the fame he has gained, with his 66 million followers, to manipulate the markets with a Tweet.
In January of this year, Gamestop's stock was tanking, the company was expected to be dismantled soon, then Elon Musk put Gamestonk on twitter, https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1354174279894642703 and the stock surpassed $300, many traders made huge amounts of money before the price returned to more normal causes...
Back in February Memecoins were something many of us hadn't even heard of...they were just that...memes...then Elon Musk asked if dogecoin should skyrocket https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1357914696645414913 and BOOM, today not only is dogecoin worth a hell of a lot more than it was then, but we have dozens of memecoins on the market....
His tweets have manipulated the price of bitcoin several in the last few years.
https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/5/18/22441831/elon-musk-bitcoin-dogecoin-crypto-prices-tesla#:~:text=Musk's%20latest%20bitcoin%20tweet%20on,greatly%20affect%20investors%20in%20cryptocurrency.
All this, he alleges, from the toilet... that's power, something that worries many, he has even had verbal confrontations with senators and even people at the UN.
With all this it is not surprising that for some he is an idol and for others a demon, the truth is that although the future is as uncertain for Elon as it is for all of us, we can assure without a doubt that he will continue to be the talk of the town? it will continue to impact the economy for better or for worse... many say that Tesla is the biggest economic bubble in history... and that it will soon burst dragging Elon and a lot of other people down with it... while the news is talking about exponential growth this year.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/tesla-stock-outlook-2022-1400-price-target-china-growth-production-2021-12...
Only time will tell who is right, but one thing I can't be wrong about is that as a hero or villain Elon Musk has already gone down in the history books...
And I don't know what the fuck that you rhyme for
You're pointless as Rapunzel with fuckin' cornrows
You write normal? Fuck being normal!
And I just bought a new raygun from the future
Just to come and shoot ya.
Those lines might as well be a tweet from Elon musk... but they are part of the lyrics of Eminem's song Rap God....
The original Times magazine article naming him person of the year is here.
https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk/
Recommended Bibliographic Reference
[1]person of the year 2021 elon musk
[2]elon musk top 12 tweets moved markets tesla stock doegcoin 2021-12
[3]Elon Musk