Time 100 Most Influential People Includes Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Alex Karp And More Public Company CEOs

Chris Katje

April 16, 2025

President Donald Trump was named the Time Person of the Year in 2024 and is one of the 100 people named to the 2025 Time Most Influential People list.

Aside from Trump and political leaders like J.D. Vance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Javier Milei, the list also includes several CEOs of publicly traded U.S. companies.

Here's a look at that list.

What Happened: The Time 100 Most Influential list includes people across categories of artists, innovators, titans, leaders and pioneers and unlike the Time 100 AI list from last year that left Elon Musk out, includes the world's richest man.

The 2025 list includes 16 corporate CEOs, which is a record for the annual list from the newsmagazine.

Here are the CEOs of publicly traded U.S. companies and their categories:

Elon Musk (Leaders): CEO of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)
Lisa Su (Titans): CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD)
Mark Zuckerberg (Titans): CEO of Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META)
Ted Sarandos (Titans): CEO of Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX)
Alex Karp (Titans): CEO of Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ:PLTR)
Ed Bastian (Titans): CEO of Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL)
Doug McMillon (Titans): CEO of Walmart (NYSE:WMT)
Stephen Squeri (Titans): CEO of American Express (NYSE:AXP)
Larry Fink (Innovators): CEO of BlackRock (NYSE:BLK)

The list also included TomÃ¡Å¡ CihlÃ¡Å™, who is a vice president at Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD), for his work on HIV drugs.

Read Also: 53 Facts And Figures About Tesla, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk On His 53rd Birthday

Why It's Important: While many readers will know the names like Ed Sheeran, Scarlett Johansson, Demi Moore, Jalen Hurts, Simon Biles, Serena Williams and Snoop Dogg, the list of most influential offers a look at some of the top CEOs who have transformed their companies or led the companies through times of uncertainty.

"What he's built over the past 25 years is astonishing -- a house of creativity that is constantly heading into the future," producer and writer Shonda Rhimes wrote of Sarandos. "Ted's genuine love of television and movies has helped him turn Netflix, and the streaming industry as a whole, into something that none of us can live without."

Musk's increased role in politics, including the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, led to his inclusion in the "leaders" category.

Time Magazine senior correspondent Simon Shuster wrote the description for Musk, highlighting past conquests from the billionaire like electric cars at Tesla, taking over Twitter and pushing into space with SpaceX.

"After spending nearly $290 million in 2024 to help elect Donald Trump and other Republican candidates, Musk has applied this same energy to the task of dismantling the federal bureaucracy," Shuster wrote.

While many Tesla and Musk fans were upset the billionaire was not included in the Time 100 AI List last year, Musk shared his best response to how he feels about accolades like making a top 100 list.

"Magazines do not establish relevance, history does," Musk said.

Read Next:

Photo: ssi77 via Shutterstock

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