Forbes list of the World's Most Powerful People

Between 2009 and 2018 (with absence in 2017) the business magazine Forbes had compiled an annual list of the world's most powerful people. The list had one slot for every 100 million people, meaning in 2009 there were 67 people on the list, and by 2018, there were 75. Slots were allocated based on the amount of human and financial resources that they had sway over, as well as their influence on world events.^[1]

Gallery of top ten in rankings 2018

Historical top ten rankings

Note: No list was released for 2017.

	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015^[2]	2016^[3]	2018^[4]
1	Barack Obama President of the United States	Hu Jintao General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party	Barack Obama President of the United States		Vladimir Putin President of Russia				Xi Jinping General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party
2	Hu Jintao General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party	Barack Obama President of the United States	Vladimir Putin Prime Minister of Russia	Angela Merkel Chancellor of Germany	Barack Obama President of the United States		Angela Merkel Chancellor of Germany	Donald Trump President-elect of the United States	Vladimir Putin President of Russia
3	Vladimir Putin Prime Minister of Russia	Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud King of Saudi Arabia	Hu Jintao General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party	Vladimir Putin President of Russia	Xi Jinping General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party		Barack Obama President of the United States	Angela Merkel Chancellor of Germany	Donald Trump President of the United States
4	Ben Bernanke U.S. Chair of the Federal Reserve	Vladimir Putin Prime Minister of Russia	Angela Merkel Chancellor of Germany	Bill Gates Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation Founder of Microsoft	Francis Pope of the Holy See			Xi Jinping General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party	Angela Merkel Chancellor of Germany
5	Sergey Brin Larry Page Co-Founders of Google	Benedict XVI Pope of the Holy See	Bill Gates Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation Founder of Microsoft	Benedict XVI Pope of the Holy See	Angela Merkel Chancellor of Germany		Xi Jinping General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party	Francis Pope of the Holy See	Jeff Bezos Chairman and CEO of Amazon
6	Carlos Slim Chief Executive of Telmex	Angela Merkel Chancellor of Germany	Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud King of Saudi Arabia	Ben Bernanke U.S. Chair of the Federal Reserve	Bill Gates Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation Founder of Microsoft	Janet Yellen U.S. Chair of the Federal Reserve	Bill Gates Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation Founder of Microsoft	Janet Yellen U.S. Chair of the Federal Reserve	Francis Pope of the Holy See
7	Rupert Murdoch Chairman of News Corporation	David Cameron Prime Minister of the United Kingdom	Benedict XVI Pope of the Holy See	Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud King of Saudi Arabia	Ben Bernanke U.S. Chair of the Federal Reserve	Bill Gates Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation Founder of Microsoft	Janet Yellen U.S. Chair of the Federal Reserve	Bill Gates Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation Founder of Microsoft
8	Mike Duke Chief Executive of Walmart	Ben Bernanke U.S. Chair of the Federal Reserve		Mario Draghi President of the European Central Bank	Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud King of Saudi Arabia	Mario Draghi President of the European Central Bank	David Cameron Prime Minister of the United Kingdom	Larry Page Co-Founder of Google	Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia
9	Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud King of Saudi Arabia	Sonia Gandhi President of the Indian National Congress	Mark Zuckerberg Founder and CEO of Facebook	Xi Jinping General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party	Mario Draghi President of the European Central Bank	Sergey Brin Larry Page Co-Founders of Google	Narendra Modi Prime Minister of India
10	Bill Gates Co-Chair of the Gates Foundation Founder of Microsoft		David Cameron Prime Minister of the United Kingdom		Mike Duke Chief Executive of Walmart	David Cameron Prime Minister of the United Kingdom	Larry Page Co-Founder of Google	Mark Zuckerberg Co-Founder of Facebook	Larry Page Co-Founder of Google

Latest list (year 2018)

Order	Name	Nationality	Position/Function
1	Xi Jinping	China	President of China
2	Vladimir Putin	Russia	President of Russia
3	Donald Trump	United States	President of the United States
4	Angela Merkel	Germany	Chancellor of Germany (stepped down in 2021)
5	Jeff Bezos	United States	CEO of Amazon
6	Pope Francis	Vatican City/ Argentina	Bishop of Rome, Pope of the Catholic Church (passed away in 2025)
7	Bill Gates	United States	Founder of Microsoft
8	Mohammed bin Salman	Saudi Arabia	Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia
9	Narendra Modi	India	Prime Minister of India
10	Larry Page	United States	Co-founder of Google
11	Jerome Powell	United States	Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve
12	Emmanuel Macron	France	President of France
13	Mark Zuckerberg	United States	CEO of Facebook, Inc (renamed Meta Platforms, Inc in 2021)
14	Theresa May	United Kingdom	Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (stepped down in 2019)
15	Li Keqiang	China	Prime Minister of China (stepped down in 2023)
16	Warren Buffett	United States	Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
17	Ali Khamenei	Iran	Supreme Leader of Iran
18	Mario Draghi	Italy	President of the European Central Bank (resigned in 2019)
19	Jamie Dimon	United States	CEO of JPMorgan Chase
20	Carlos Slim	Mexico	Chairman of Telmex, Chairman Emeritus of América Móvil
21	Jack Ma	China	Founder of Alibaba
22	Christine Lagarde	France	Director of the International Monetary Fund (resigned in 2019)
23	Doug McMillon	United States	CEO of Walmart
24	Tim Cook	United States	CEO of Apple Inc.
25	Elon Musk	South Africa, Canada and United States	Founder and CEO of SpaceX, CEO of Tesla
26	Benjamin Netanyahu	Israel	Prime Minister of Israel
27	Ma Huateng	China	Chairman and CEO of Tencent
28	Larry Fink	United States	Co-founder and CEO of BlackRock
29	Akio Toyoda	Japan	Chairman of Toyota
30	John L. Flannery	United States	CEO of General Electric (stepped down in 2018)
31	António Guterres	Portugal	Secretary-General of the United Nations
32	Mukesh Ambani	India	Chairman of Reliance Industries
33	Jean-Claude Juncker	Luxemburg	President of the European Commission (stepped down in 2019)
34	Darren Woods	United States	CEO of ExxonMobil
35	Sergey Brin	United States	Co-founder of Google, President of Alphabet (stepped down in 2019)
36	Kim Jong-Un	North Korea	General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea (North Korea)
37	Charles Koch	United States	Chairman and CEO] of Koch Industries
38	Shinzo Abe	Japan	Prime Minister of Japan (stepped down in 2020, passed away in 2022)
39	Rupert Murdoch	United States	Chairman of News Corp (stepped down in 2023)
40	Satya Nadella	United States	Chairman and CEO of Microsoft
41	Jim Yong Kim	United States	President of the World Bank (stepped down in 2019)
42	Stephen A. Schwarzman	United States	Chairman and CEO of Blackstone Group
43	Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan	United Arab Emirates	President of the United Arab Emirates (stepped down in 2023)
44	Haruhiko Kuroda	Japan	Governor of the Bank of Japan (stepped down in 2023)
45	Abdul Fatah Khalil Al-Sisi	Egypt	President of Egypt
46	Li Ka-Shing	Hong Kong	Chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings (stepped down in May of 2018)
47	Lloyd Blankfein	United States	CEO of Goldman Sachs (stepped down at the end of 2018)
48	Recep Tayyip Erdogan	Turkey	President of Turkey
49	Bob Iger	United States	CEO of The Walt Disney Company
50	Michel Temer	Brazil	President of Brazil (stepped down in 2019)
51	Michael Bloomberg	United States	Founder and CEO of Bloomberg (stepped down in 2023)
52	Wang Jianlin	China	Chairman, founder, and majority shareholde of Dalian Wanda Group
53	Mary Barra	United States	Chair of Board and CEO of General Motors
54	Moon Jae-in	South Korea	President of South Korea (stepped down in 2022)
55	Masayoshi Son	Japan	Founder, chairman and CEO of SoftBank
56	Bernard Arnault	France	Founder, chairman and CEO of LVMH
57	Justin Trudeau	Canada	Prime Minister of Canada (stepped down in 2025)
58	Robin Li	China	CEO of Baidu
59	Michael Dell	United States	Founder, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies
60	Hui Ka Yan	China	Chairman and Communist Party secretary of Evergrande Group
61	Lee Hsien Loong	Singapore	Prime Minister of Singapore (stepped down in 2021)
62	Bashar al-Assad	Syria	President of Syria (overthrown from power in 2024)
63	John Roberts	United States	Chief Justice of the United States
64	Enrique Peña Nieto	Mexico	President of Mexico (stepped down in November of 2018)
65	Kenneth C. Griffin	United States	Chairman of Citadel Investment Group
66	Aliko Dangote	Nigeria	President and CEO of Dangote Group
67	Mike Pence	United States	Vice-president of the United States (stepped down in 2021)
68	Qamar Javed Bajwa	Pakistan	de facto Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Armed Forces (retired in 2022)
69	Rodrigo Duterte	Philippines	President of the Philippines (stepped down in 2022)
70	Abigail Johnson	United States	CEO of Fidelity Investments
71	Reed Hastings	United States	Founder and chairman of Netflix
72	Robert Mueller	United States	Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice (office abolished in 2019)
73	Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi	Iraq	Self-proclaimed Caliph of the Islamic State (passed away in 2019)
74	Joko Widodo	Indonesia	President of Indonesia (stepped down in 2024)
75	Gianni Infantino	Switzerland	President of FIFA

Listed seven or more times

Listed every time

Listed eight times

Bernard Arnault (not listed: 2016)
Jeff Bezos (not listed: 2009)
Jeff Immelt (not listed: 2018)
Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan (not listed: 2009)
Charles Koch (not listed: 2009)
Robin Li (not listed: 2009)
Barack Obama (not listed: 2018)
Masayoshi Son (not listed: 2009)
Rex Tillerson (not listed: 2018)
Mark Zuckerberg (not listed: 2009)

Listed seven times

Tim Cook (not listed: 2009 and 2010)
Mario Draghi (not listed: 2009 and 2010)
Xi Jinping (not listed: 2009 and 2010)
Christine Lagarde (not listed: 2009 and 2010)
Lakshmi Mittal (not listed: 2016 and 2018)
John Roberts (not listed: 2010 and 2011)
Akio Toyoda (not listed: 2010 and 2011)

References

^ Noer, Michael; Perlroth, Nicole (11 November 2009). "The World's Most Powerful People". Forbes. Retrieved 2009-11-16.
^ Ewalt, David M. (4 November 2015). "The World's Most Powerful People 2015". Forbes. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
^ Ewalt, David M. (14 December 2016). "The World's Most Powerful People 2016". Forbes. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
^ Ewalt, David M. (8 May 2018). "The World's Most Powerful People 2018". Forbes. Retrieved 10 May 2018.

External links

The World's Most Powerful People, Forbes.

[1] Noer, Michael; Perlroth, Nicole (11 November 2009). "The World's Most Powerful People". Forbes. Retrieved 2009-11-16.

[2] Ewalt, David M. (4 November 2015). "The World's Most Powerful People 2015". Forbes. Retrieved 10 May 2018.

[3] Ewalt, David M. (14 December 2016). "The World's Most Powerful People 2016". Forbes. Retrieved 10 May 2018.

[4] Ewalt, David M. (8 May 2018). "The World's Most Powerful People 2018". Forbes. Retrieved 10 May 2018.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]