Photo: Arthur Mola via AP Images

A petition went up on Change.org yesterday for Elon Musk, co-creator of PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla Motors, and the man responsible for the inception of the Hyperloop transportation system, to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.




The Change.org petition to award Musk with what is actually called the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was started by Edward Tanas, and as of today has earned almost 600 signatures. Here’s the opening of the petition’s statement:



Mr. Musk has spent most of his life helping not only to help the economics of transportation flourish with technological breakthroughs but has done so in a manner that addresses climate change.

His ventures into the production of electric cars most recently the more affordable Tesla Model 3, which at the time of writing this petition has over 253,000 orders, has helped to reduce the impact on the environment by replacing internal combustion engine vehicles.




The petition continues with a short biography of Musk’s successes, including the creation of the monetary transaction web service PayPal, the founding of the SpaceX cargo shipment space courier company, the invigoration of Tesla Motors to, at the present moment, a lineup of four vehicles; the most recent vehicle being the Model 3, which just reached 267,000 reservation orders over a three day period following its introduction.

The Economics prize category is applicable in Musk’s case for revolutionizing online payment with PayPal and going on to making companies where spaceflight and electric transportation are economical.

There’s also his involvement with the Hyperloop project, which is a high-speed vacuum train that hopes to revolutionize long-distance travel... one day. So, more possibly-economical transportation!

It’s a fair argument to make, and if you agree, you can read and sign the full petition here.


If you disagree, let us know why!

H/T to AutoBlog