Elon Musk

Elon Musk may be CEO of Tesla, but his broad vision and engineering intuition have made him a recognized leader across several industries, even if his sometimes callous opinions or the rigid expectations he sets for employees have made him a polarizing figure. This fall, SpaceX—now reportedly valued at $210 billion—performed a historic engineering feat while testing its next-generation rocket Starship. Neuralink, last valued at $8 billion, successfully implanted its brain-computer-interface chip into a human for the first time, enabling a paralyzed man to use a computer mouse with his brain. Some Musk companies have had setbacks, too—whether it be the business struggles of social media site X (formerly known as Twitter), safety issues with Boring Company employees building tunnels in Las Vegas, or federal inquiries into the safety of Tesla’s self-driving software. Meanwhile, Musk has been spending increasing amounts of time focused on politics, becoming one of Donald Trump’s most visible—and largest-contributing—supporters.