Time’s “Person of the Year’’ award has become something of a contentious calendar staple. The first individual to receive the award 94 years ago in 1927 — which, at that time, was called “Man of the Year,” because misogyny runs as deep as it does long in this county — was aviator Charles Lindbergh for his historic trans-Atlantic flight. (It was also a remedy for the magazine; they failed to cover the story earlier that year.)

In the nearly century since the award’s inception, everything from The Computer (“Machine of the Year,” 1982) to our current President and Vice President have been deemed worthy of the honor. He who shall not be named was designated the runner-up for the prestigious accolade in 2018… though he insisted that Time editors earlier contacted him that year saying he’d “probably” be named the winner. (Shocker: That was a lie.)

When you lay bare the hardships faced by Tesla’s Fremont factory workers, Musk should not be Time’s “Person of the Year.”

For 2021, Elon Musk — the Dogecoin fanboy; the sitting CEO of businesses like Tesla, SpaceX, and the Boring Company; a man who’s been celebrated in rarified, almost religious air for his contributions in moving our society forward into a more tech-steeped destiny — accepted the distinction. Musk received it while holding his son, X Æ A-Xii (pronounced “X”), in his arms. Martha Stwart and his mother, Maye Musk, were pictured in the star-studded crowd.

Tesla stock sat at around $914 while he was being honored for the award; it’s a price point 2,266.69% higher than where the stock sat just five years ago.

“The goal overall has been to make life multi-planetary and enable humanity to become a spacefaring civilization,” Musk said in his Time profile, noting that the endeavor wouldn’t only be “profitable,” but it would be “exciting.”

Without context, it’s a well-meaning sentiment. Sure, it reeks of elitism, but Musk’s forward-thinking mindset is laudable — albeit on a surface level. And again: barring the wok condition controversies that surround his companies, primarily Tesla.

This, alas, includes the inhumanity Musk has shown Fremont factory workers over the past three years; these malicious actions were vested upon the same employee cohort responsible for a sizable portion of his nearly $300 billion net worth.

Those workers, who were forced to perform in unsafe conditions amid the pandemic and still met production quotas despite internal COVID-19 outbreaks, deserve the “Person of the Year” award. Not Musk.

Tesla’s historic growth lent itself to hiring sprees that put workers inside situations with loose worker safety requirements — a trend that’s been prevalent since the factory fell into Tesla’s hands in 2010. Initially, the facility was opened as the General Motors Fremont Assembly plant in 1962 and was later owned by a former GM–Toyota joint venture before Tesla eventually took ownership.

Musk is a revolutionary cultural figure, polarizing and memorable. There’s no denying that actuality.

Many employees noted that their Tesla production line training was “hands-on-only,” leaving them without the proper time to adjust to both the assembly pace and physical requirements needed to perform the job.

(Factory workers routinely burn about 400 calories an hour while on the production line — meaning a traditional 8-hour shift that includes a 30-minute break could burn close to the number of calories found in a pound of body fat. It’s little wonder why fatigue is the number one cause of injury for those in factory settings.)

How our society looks past hints of Musk’s unlabeled oligarchy in the real of innovation and his monopoly on the future of human-facility factory production is worrisome.

And, of course, these letters came just a day after two Tesla employees came out publicly to denounce the factory’s unsafe working conditions.

Just yesterday, a suspected homicide at the Fremont Factory occurred. Many Black workers at the Fremont factory have reported racial slurs being thrown at them by upper management and that they were barred from receiving certain promotions. Tesla Fremont factory employees currently work without a union backing (but that could soon change).

Yes despite this set of obstacles, Tesla has reached an annualized production rate of over 1 million cars in Q3 2021 — a first in the company’s history.

Musk is a revolutionary cultural figure, polarizing and memorable. There’s no denying that actuality. He’s helped usher humanity — or rather: opened our eyes — to the possibilities that exist outside of our normalities. Fantastic, wonderful, great.

How our society looks past hints of Musk’s unlabeled oligarchy on innovation and his monopoly on the future of human-facility factory production is worrisome. The reality that it’s now deemed praise-worthy is perhaps even more concerning. Dictatorial regimes come in all sorts of fashions; headline vanity lends itself to glossing over the truth, thus endangering the greater public.

When you lay bare the hardships faced by Tesla’s Fremont factory workers, Musk should not be Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.” I’d wager it’s hard to argue that point, sans acknowledging any sociopathic tendencies that exist within yourself.

But reframing and retyping and reestablishing Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” to, instead, celebrate Tesla’s Freemont factory works sits far better. Don’t you agree?

Feature Image: Tesla worker Carlos Gabriel holds a sign during a demonstration outside of the Tesla factory on June 15, 2020 in Fremont, California. A handful of Tesla workers staged a protest outside of the Tesla factory to demand that California Gov. Gavin Newsom dispatch CAL-OSHA inspectors to the factory to inspect working conditions during the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)