[SunkenCiv]

Maybe, but it's a long way from a billion to a trillion. Not sure how old everyone is, but when I was a kid, there were just two billionaires, J. Paul Getty and (kind of remarkably) Howard Hughes. Then, in the 1990s, I remember some posh magazine that had a piece titled something like, "Forget billionaire -- the club now starts at $50 billion".

And seconding, Musk is always entertaining, even when he's shooting off his mouth as he was with his "pedo guy" comment.

Despite his wacko bigotry, Henry Ford was the most significant person in history so far -- he didn't invent industrialism, or even the assembly line (he saw the Armour 'disassembly line' and had a light bulb moment), but he not only metamorphosed manufacturing and brought down prices to broaden adoption, he literally transformed transportation, which led to our taken-for-granted modern road networks (worldwide; I grew up on a washboard gravel road in a home with a gravel driveway). He also mechanized agriculture (the buildout goes on, but that's also worldwide), and Ford was an early aircraft manufacturers.

We're witnessing another transformation -- reusability of spacecraft, electric vehicles (the main reason there's knee-jerk reactions against him), Starlink -- and once Musk's first human colony is on Mars, he'll be the new number one. :^)

Tesla's main contribution was his invention of the three types of AC motors, which altered manufacturing as well as home appliances -- but he was a also a real nutjob. I'd guess that he also had what we used to call Asperger's syndrome (before it was wiped from the DSM). The Margaret Cheney bio of him ("Tesla: Man Out of Time") is great, btw. Tesla also demostrated and patented what we now call radio, eventually winning a pyrrhic court victory over Marconi. He invented fluorescent lighting, using it in his lab (the one that eventually burned down) but considered it not worth patenting. He was one of the prediscovery discoverers of X-Rays (he took an X-Ray of Mark Twain, if memory serves). Despite all that, his bust would have to remain in a niche in the corridor. :^)

[nicollo]

Despite his wacko bigotry, Henry Ford was the most significant person in history so far -- he didn't invent industrialism, or even the assembly line (he saw the Armour 'disassembly line' and had a light bulb moment), but he not only metamorphosed manufacturing and brought down prices to broaden adoption, he literally transformed transportation, which led to our taken-for-granted modern road networks (worldwide; I grew up on a washboard gravel road in a home with a gravel driveway). He also mechanized agriculture (the buildout goes on, but that's also worldwide), and Ford was an early aircraft manufacturers.

Ford's genius was his maniacal focus on highest quality at lowest cost. It took him a while (c. 7 years), but once he realized the relationship between production volume and economies of scale, it was all over for his competition. He held at one point something like 80% of the worldwide automobile market.

It was only GM's invention of auto financing (GMAC in 1919) that eventually took out the Model T: even though Ford took the base price down to low $200's, with financing consumers preferred a better performing $450+ Chevrolet. Additionally, up until that time, the T held the highest ratio of cost / horsepower, which the Chevrolet eclipsed in 1923/24 as it took over the market.

As for roads, it wasn't the Model T that created them, it was state and federal lobbying by elite motorists clubs who pushed the issue starting in the early 1900s, well before the T had it's impact. (Btw, the vast majority of T's sold were to urban/suburban consumers, not farmers; it was, of course, dominant in rural markets.)