Elon Musk named businessman of the year
SA-born SpaceX and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, has been named Fortune Magazine’s businessperson of the year, alongside other big names in technology.
According to Fortune, Musk is described as a “triple threat”, moving from co-founding payment service, PayPal, straight into the world of borderline sci-fi – with space exploration, electric cars and solar energy.
In 2013, Musk moved Tesla Motors on the path to profitability, and caught the eyes of analysts and consumers with his ideas and visions (including a futuristic transport concept called the Hyperloop) – and in the midst of all his successes, still managed to indulge in his own personal fancies.
“Bloomberg Wealth says he is worth $7.7 billion, but it is his audacity and tenacity that make him Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year,” the publication said.
Musk was named ahead of a slew of “activist investors” – including the vocal Dell and Apple investor, Carl Icahn – for their contribution to sending strong and clear messages to corporations during the course of 2013.
Activist investor, Carl Icahn
In third position, Fortune tipped its hat to Pony Ma Huateng, co-founder and CEO of Chinese Internet company, Tencent – which saw a 61% gain in value since January 2013, sending stocks of SA media company, Naspers (which has a large shareholding in the company) flying to new highs.
Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos appeared sixth on the list, having pushed the massive online retailer into new markets and launching new services. Bezos also made a bold personal move in 2013, forking over $250 million of his own wealth to buy The Washington Post newspaper.
In eigth postion, Google co-founder and CEO, Larry Page cracked the top 10 list, with the online giant’s share prices rocketing past the $1,000 mark in 2013. According to Fortune, Google remains number one in search, ads, mobile (Android), online video, maps and browsers.
Yahoo’s CEO, Marissa Mayer, crept into the top 10, pushing the Internet company’s turnaround through a number of acquisitions including popular blogging platform, Tumblr, for $1.1 billion. Mayer’s overhaul of Yahoo has pushed its user base up to 800 million, while the company’s stock price has doubled in 2013, according to Fortune.
Fortune’s top 10 business people of the year
| # | Name | Company |
| 1 | Elon Musk | Tesla Motors, SpaceX |
| 2 | Activist Investors | Various |
| 3 | Pony Ma Huateng | Tencent |
| 4 | Angela Ahrendts | Burberry |
| 5 | Reed Hastings / Jeff Bewkes | Netflix / Time Warner |
| 6 | Jeff Bezos | Amazon |
| 7 | Akio Toyoda | Toyota |
| 8 | Larry Page | |
| 9 | Warren Buffett | Berkshire Hathaway |
| 10 | Marissa Mayer | Yahoo |
Other tech personalities to make the list of 50 names include:
- Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg (12th);
- Recently-listed Twitter’s chairman, Jack Dorsey (14th)
- Softbank chairman and CEO, Masayoshi Son (19th);
- Chinese search engine, Baidu CEO, Robin Li (24th);
- GungHo Online Entertainment CEO, Kazuki Morishita (26th);
- Founder and CEO of Salesforce.com, Marc Benioff (27th);
- Yelp CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman (29th);
- Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo (33rd);
- Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick (40th);
- Telecom mogul and second richest man in the world, Carlos Slim (41st);
- and Apple CEO, Tim Cook (47th).
Fortune’s full list of business people of the year can be found here.
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