Love him or hate him, Elon Musk is enjoying spectacular run

Goofy or gaudy? While the chief executive officers of the Big Four tech companies – Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc, Facebook Inc, and Google Inc – were derided as ‘Cyber Barons’ during a grilling by US Congress last week on antitrust issues, Musk basked in Style-section treatment in the Sunday New York Times. — Reuters

Whether you find him admirable or obnoxious, Elon Musk is having a fantastic year.

SpaceX, the company he founded in 2002, blasted two American astronauts to the International Space Station in late May and brought them safely home in a historic splashdown Aug 2, heralding a new age of private-sector space travel. Tesla Inc, his electric car-maker, recently celebrated its fourth straight quarter of profit and may soon join the S&P 500 Index. This year’s share rally has made the California company the world’s most valuable automaker, with a market value of roughly US$267bil (RM1.12tril) as of Friday’s close.