Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People


Since 2009, the business magazine, Forbes had compiled an annual list of the world's most powerful people. The list has one slot for every 100 million people, meaning in 2009 there were 67 people on the list and by 2018 there were 75. Slots are allocated based on the amount of human and financial resources that they have sway over, as well as their influence on world events.

Historical Top Ten rankings

Note: No list was released for 2017 and 2019.

Listed seven or more times

Listed every time


  • Mukesh Ambani
  • Lloyd Blankfein
  • Michael Bloomberg
  • Sergey Brin
  • Warren Buffett
  • Jamie Dimon
  • Laurence D. Fink
  • Bill Gates
  • Li Ka-shing
  • Ali Khamenei
  • Angela Merkel
  • Rupert Murdoch
  • Benjamin Netanyahu
  • Larry Page
  • Vladimir Putin
  • Carlos Slim

Listed eight times


  • Bernard Arnault
  • Jeff Bezos
  • Jeff Immelt
  • Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan
  • Charles Koch
  • Robin Li
  • Barack Obama
  • Masayoshi Son
  • Rex Tillerson
  • Mark Zuckerberg

Listed seven times


  • Tim Cook
  • Mario Draghi
  • Xi Jinping
  • Christine Lagarde
  • Lakshmi Mittal
  • John Roberts
  • Akio Toyoda