Jensen Huang of NVIDIA Tops Fortune’s 2025 Most Powerful People in Business List

Fortune proudly unveils its second-annual ranking of the 100 Most Powerful People in Business. The list spotlights a diverse group of influential leaders, from innovative disruptors and well-known industry titans to Fortune 500 CEOs and behind-the-scenes power players.

The 2025 ranking spans 28 global industries, including finance, technology, retail, and automotive. Nineteen of the featured CEOs and leaders are women, such as Julie Sweet of Accenture (No. 11), Jane Fraser of Citigroup (No. 12), Lisa Su of AMD (No. 14), and Ana Botín of Banco Santander (No. 20).

This year, Jensen Huang of NVIDIA claims the top spot, dethroning last year’s No. 1, Elon Musk. Under Huang’s leadership, NVIDIA recently became the first company to surpass a $4 trillion market capitalization, a feat driven by the soaring demand for its AI chips. This milestone highlights NVIDIA’s critical role in the generative AI boom, which is reshaping the global tech landscape and powering many of the other top tech companies on this list. While NVIDIA faces competition from both established players and startups, Fortune notes that “none pose a serious threat to NVIDIA’s dominance—yet.”

Musk, who drops to No. 4, is currently grappling with challenges at Tesla, including a damaged reputation from his “DOGE for President Trump” campaign and the rise of international EV rivals.

The 2025 list welcomes several new faces, including three leaders from Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business list: Tan Su Shan of DBS Group (No. 28), Beth Ford of Land O’Lakes (No. 51), and Bonnie Chan of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (No. 53). Other notable newcomers are Liang Wenfeng of DeepSeek (No. 72) and Vlad Tenev of Robinhood Markets (No. 73).

The ranking comprises executives from 62 U.S.-based companies, 17 from Asia, 13 from Europe, and one from the Middle East. Seven companies have two executives on the list: Alphabet, Palantir, Microsoft, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, Blackstone, and Oracle.

In her foreword for the August/September 2025 issue, Fortune’s Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell emphasizes the dynamic nature of the list: “Gone are the days when a leader can remain on this list without constantly reinventing their company, their strategy, everything.”

Fortune’s proprietary methodology for this list is based on several key criteria, including the size and financial health of the leader’s business, as well as the leader’s personal innovation, influence, and impact.