To become powerful, you must wield enormous influence over a very large number of people. The most powerful people in the world are normally heads of state, CEOs, financiers, philanthropists and entrepreneurs who truly run the world. Their decisions impact the lives of millions of people each day. Take for instance heads of states, with militaries at their disposal and even nuclear weapons, a miscalculation or wrong decision could mean a conflagration that engulfs all of civilization. Or even CEOs of big corporations, whose decisions can alter the course of our lives. Our lives are literally at the hands of the world’s most powerful people.
Here are the top 20 most powerful people in the world.
| Rank | Name | Position |
| 1. | Donald Trump | President of the United States |
| 2. | Xi Jinping | President of China |
| 3. | Vladimir Putin | President of Russia |
| 4. | Olaf Scholz | Chancellor of Germany |
| 5. | Jeff Bezos | Founder of Amazon |
| 6. | Pope Francis | Head of the Catholic Church |
| 7. | Bill Gates | Co-founder of Microsoft |
| 8. | Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud | Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia |
| 9. | Narendra Modi | Prime Minister of India |
| 10. | Larry Page | Co-founder of Google |
| 11. | Jerome H. Powell | Chair of the US Federal Reserve |
| 12. | Emmanuel Macron | President of France |
| 13. | Mark Zuckerberg | CEO of Meta |
| 14. | Rishi Sunak | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom |
| 15. | Li Keqiang | Premier of China |
| 16. | Warren Buffett | CEO of Berkshire Hathaway |
| 17. | Ali Hoseini-Khamenei | Supreme Leader of Iran |
| 18. | Christine Lagarde | President of the European Central Bank |
| 19. | Jamie Dimon | CEO of JPMorgan Chase |
| 20. | Carlos Slim Helú | Mexican business magnate |
