Elon Musk's year started with a bang.
In early January, he became the richest person in the world, overtaking Jeff Bezos.
"How strange," he tweeted laconically.
The year saw more milestones for Musk, who is in the rare position of chairing two companies that have shaken up industries.
One of them, the electric car maker Tesla, saw its share price rise yet again, and the market value temporarily surpassed the $ 1 trillion mark.
That temporarily swelled Musk's estimated fortune to a staggering amount of more than $ 300 billion.
Roland Lindner
Business correspondent in New York.
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Musk's second company SpaceX, in turn, continued a series of successes.
After enabling the US to return to manned space travel in 2020, it sent tourists into space for the first time this year and secured a prestigious contract for a mission that will bring astronauts to the moon for the first time in a long time.
The magazine “Time” recently named Musk Person of the Year and wrote that few people have so much influence “on life on earth and possibly also outside of earth”.
The entrepreneur attracts attention with his Twitter rabble
Musk doesn't just talk to cars and rockets. After Donald Trump was kicked out on Twitter, he took on the role of provocator and regularly attracts attention with pubescent humor and insults. Most recently, he fueled the discussion about tax avoidance among the super-rich with the sale of huge packages of Tesla shares and also drew attention to the question that has been in the room for some time, how long he will remain at the top of the company. With all the superlatives and his quirkiness, it may fit that he awarded himself a title this year. In an official announcement, he let the Securities and Exchange Commission know that from now on he would no longer call himself only CEO at Tesla, but also “technoking”.
In the corporate world, Musk, who turned 50 in June, is a unique figure.
It enjoys a legendary status similar to that of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
What he tweets to his 67 million followers can move stock prices or help a previously obscure crypto currency such as Dogecoin to gain broader acceptance.
"We are in Musk's world, whether we like it or not," wrote "Time" on the occasion of the person of the year freestyle.
The fact that the native South African likes to make a name for himself far beyond his work with Tesla or SpaceX only fuels the star cult.
That year he hosted an episode of the famous American comedy show "Saturday Night Live," a role usually reserved for celebrities in the film or music industry.