Fortune magazine today named Elon Musk as its Businessperson of the Year. In taking the top prize, the CEO of electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc. and SpaceX beats out many high-profile chief executives including Yahoo 's Marissa Mayer, Google co-founder Larry Page and Berkshire Hathaway boss Warren Buffett.

In the magazine's cover story, author Chris Anderson compares Musk with the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, in part for his persuasiveness. Here are a few excerpts from Fortune:

Anderson writes: "Jobs' reputation for 'reality distortion' is well-documented. In his own way, Musk is equally persuasive, trusting his own internal logic and instincts in the face of intense pushback."

On challenges at Tesla in developing door handles that would extend as the driver approached and automatically retract to minimize air resistance, Musk said: "There were numerous conversations where I had pushback from the engineers. And it's not like they were saying, 'Oh, this is a challenge.' More like, 'This is the stupidest thing ever.' But we did it in the end, and yes, I think it's cool—one of the car's signature features."

Musk on going against prevailing wisdom and persuading his SpaceX team to create reusable rockets: "It was obvious to me that we could never colonize Mars without reusability, any more than America would have been colonized if they had to burn the ships after every trip."