Elon Musk reflects on how far the mighty can fall in a single year

With a new year upon us, Elon Musk posted a nostalgic tweet about a distinction that mirrored his colossal hubris. 

The billionaire business magnate reminded his 124.4 million followers to put some respect on his name with a throwback to a career milestone that he believes sealed his status as an icon. He wrote, “12 months ago, I was Person of the Year.”

Indeed, TIME magazine chose Elon as its 2022 Person of the Year. The tweet has received 283 000 likes so far. However, not everyone was drinking the Kool-Aid.

Mason Pelt felt it was meaningless for Elon to bring up past glories. They posted a screen capture of the current value of Tesla stock at $108.10 with the caption, “And Tesla stock was $383 a share. What’s your point?”

Journalist Shama Junejo burst the bubble of Elon’s reverie by underscoring that his contentious tenure as the head of his recently purchased social media app has adversely impacted his standing with many people, tweeting, “And then you bought Twitter…”

Content creator Tallie Dar alluded to the reality that a growing number of people take issue with Elon enabling intolerance on Twitter. They posted an image of Time Magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year, Greta Thunberg, paraphrasing her legendary quip at misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate, “Do you recycle pizza boxes tho.”

Another user, Bret Strizak, retweeted the epic rejoinder Thunberg fired at Tate that torpedoed his career, with the caption,”She won tweet of the year for 2022.”

Another user, James Bradley, was more complimentary of Elon and offered him words of encouragement, “You still are. Keep fighting.”

Krist Hines, editor of Search Engine Journal, helped put things in perspective by pointing out that Musk’s achievement may not be quite as special as he believes. She dropped the receipts on when literally everyone was Time’s Person of the Year, tweeting, “In 2006, we all were.”

After 57 perfect of Twitter users called for him to step down as CEO, it’s no wonder Musk’s ego is wounded. He exists in a sphere of such rarefied privilege that it rendered him blind to the dangers of hate speech, and left him bewildered by people who find his willful ignorance and hypocrisy on this issue frustrating. Let’s hope the year ahead endows him with greater insight and compassion.