Progressives erupt over Elon Musk's selection as TIME 'Person of the Year': 'What an absolute disgrace'

Elon Musk's selection as the 2021 TIME Person of the Year drew a sharp reaction from progressives online Monday.

"Musk has spent a lifetime defying the haters; now, it seems, he’s finally in position to put them in their place. For 2021 was the year of Elon Unbound," TIME wrote in its profile of Musk, the world's richest man with a net worth of more than $250 billion.

The Tesla CEO and founder of SpaceX, the aerospace company that has been a pioneer in the private space industry, has long been an outspoken and controversial figure.

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Musk's selection drew praise from admirers over his disruptive legacy, but liberals who accuse him of being anti-union, and dislike his immense wealth, opposition to tax hikes, and approach to addressing climate change.

"Unlike some techno-libertarians, Musk doesn’t anticipate a grim future of competition for resources in which only the naturally gifted prevail. But he rejects the idea that the size of his fortune constitutes a policy problem in and of itself, or that he is morally obligated to pay some share of it in taxes," TIME noted in its profile.

One of Musk's more famous, or infamous, moments this year came when he tweeted a vulgar insult at Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, Ore., who supports a billionaires tax.

So when Musk's selection was rolled out on Monday, some of the online left were furious.

"Everything is so f---ing dumb," Jacobin's Luke Savage fumed.

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"Oh for f---s sake," former California congresswoman Katie Hill, D., wrote.

Democratic adviser Kurt Bardella said the magazine had lost its credibility, calling the choice an "absolute disgrace."

"Elon mush would not exist without the government subsidies he can't stop complaining about," left-wing writer Molly Jong-Fast wrote.

Musk's remarkable year and plans for the future regarding space travel played a key role in his selection.

SpaceX helped NASA send Inspiration4, the world's first all-civilian crew, to space and won an exclusive $2.9 billion contract in April to create a lunar lander that will help transport humans back to the moon for the first time since 1972 under NASA's Artemis program. 

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SpaceX's reusable Starship rocket, which will carry humans to the moon, Mars and beyond as Musk looks to make human life multiplanetary, is aiming for its first orbital test launch in January, subject to completion of the Federal Aviation Administration's environmental assessment of its launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, by the end of the year.  

Though Musk has faced scrutiny for putting money into SpaceX that could be used toward Earth's problems, he also established The Boring Company in 2016, a tunneling and construction firm that is looking to tackle the issue of traffic congestion. The Boring Company has already created a "loop system" at the Las Vegas Convention Center which it is planning to expand and is considering additional tunnel projects in Texas and Florida. 

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Fox Business' Lucas Manfredi contributed to this report.