Time Magazine is Right to Select Elon Musk as Person of the Year

Writing for Mail Plus, Toby has stood by Time magazine’s Person of the Year award going to Elon Musk, and has praised the tycoon’s bravery for being a devout lockdown sceptic. As Toby points out, earlier in the year, Musk tweeted a favourable response to one of Toby’s tweets commenting on how well Sweden had fared during the pandemic, with the tycoon’s internet fame ensuring that the original post got plenty of attraction. In his article, Toby explains why he was so delighted to get a response from the eccentric multi-billionaire.

There’s also the fact that in 2021 he became the richest man in the world – or, indeed, in the history of the world, with a net worth of over $250 billion. If Elon Musk is following me on Twitter, I thought, maybe he’ll buy me a new car for Christmas. Among other things, he owns Tesla, which controls two-thirds of America’s electric vehicle market and is worth a trillion dollars.

But the main reason I was so chuffed is because the tweet he was responding to – favourably, I might add – was about how well Sweden had fared during the pandemic. As anyone who’s been following the news will know, Sweden was almost alone in not imposing a lockdown in 2020 and experienced one of the lowest excess death rates in Europe.

So Musk, it turns out, is a lockdown sceptic, something that’s attracted a lot of criticism in the U.S. For instance, in May of last year he reopened his Tesla factory in northern California in defiance of a local public health order shutting down businesses and ordering citizens to stay at home.

“Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules,” he tweeted. “I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”

The local authorities decided to do nothing in response, proving it was possible to defy its authoritarian diktats without being punished.

Almost alone among the billionaire class, Musk has been fiercely critical of Covid restrictions, describing them as “fascist” and, at the height of the lockdowns, tweeting: “FREE AMERICA NOW.”

Earlier this year Musk relocated Tesla’s headquarters to Austin, thanks to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s more laissez-faire approach to dealing with the pandemic.

He isn’t a vaccine sceptic and has been vaccinated himself, but draws the line at ‘No Jab, No Job’ and believes any attempt to strong-arm people into having the jab is wrong.

“You are taking a risk, but people do risky things all the time,” he says of the unvaccinated. “I believe we’ve got to watch out for the erosion of freedom in America.”

Others will be fans of the eccentric industrialist for more conventional reasons. Time magazine made him its ‘Man of the Year’ in 2021, primarily because of the success of Space-X, his rocket company…

But Elon Musk is my Man of the Year because of his courageous stand against the madness that’s engulfed the world over the past year and a half. Being a lockdown sceptic can be a lonely business, with the vast majority of rich and powerful people ranged against you and dismissing you as a ‘denier’.

Worth reading in full.