Some of the richest people in the world are also the most powerful people in the world. But it is not just wealth that makes a man powerful. The power positions that they may hold or the amount of information or knowledge in their position can also make them powerful.
Taking all these into consideration, we have compiled a list of the 10 most powerful men in the world, including people from various walks of life. Starting from politicians to social media barons and religious leaders to E-commerce tycoons, our comprehensive list covers men from diverse fields who are prominent figures in their respective industries or areas of operation.
Now you would be curious to know about the methodology followed in ranking these candidates. The first and foremost factor is the number of people over which the person has influence.
It was followed by the financial resources controlled by each candidate. The third criterion was whether the person is influential in multiple spheres. The fourth and last factor was how actively the candidates wield their power.
Here, we have made an honest attempt to cover as much information about each of these ten candidates. Starting from their year of birth, educational background, area of expertise, and the inspiring story of how they rose to fame, the list gives you detailed information about each and every candidate.
List Of The Most Powerful Men In The World – Latest Update
Here you go. Let’s check out who has made it to the top 10 of the most powerful man in the world.
- Mark Zuckerberg
- Xi Jinping
- Vladimir Putin
- Bill Gates
- Pope Francis
- Jeff Bezos
- Elon Musk
- Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud
- Larry Page
- Narendra Modi
| Ranking | Name | Profession |
| 1 | Mark Zuckerberg | Entrepreneur |
| 2 | Xi Jinping | Politician |
| 3 | Vladimir Putin | Politician |
| 4 | Bill Gates | Entrepreneur |
| 5 | Pope Francis | Priest |
| 6 | Jeff Bezos | Entrepreneur |
| 7 | Elon Musk | Entrepreneur |
| 8 | Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud | Politician |
| 9 | Larry Page | Entrepreneur |
| 10 | Narendra Modi | Politician |
1. Mark Zuckerberg
The top entry on the list of the world’s most powerful men is Mark Zuckerberg, the American internet entrepreneur. As the co-founder of Facebook, he spearheaded the social media revolution across the globe.
Apart from being the Chairman, Chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder of Facebook, Zuckerberg is also a well-known philanthropist.
Born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York. Zuckerberg did his college education at Harvard University. In 2004, when he was 19, Zuckerberg launched Facebook along with his roommates. Initially, launched among select college campuses, the purpose of the application was to match names with photos of classmates.
However, Facebook became an instant hit and expanded its wings beyond colleges to touch one billion users by 2012. In May 2012, Facebook went public and as of 31 December 2021, Zuckerberg owns 13.6% shares in the company.
In 2012, Facebook went on to acquire Instagram for a whopping sum of $1 billion. It was followed by the $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, the messaging application. In November 2021, Facebook changed its name to Meta to shift its focus to the metaverse.
As part of philanthropy, Zuckerberg announced in December 2015 that he and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan would be donating 99% of their Facebook shares to charity.
2. Xi Jinping
The next candidate on the list is Xi Jinping, a politician from China and the President of the People’s Republic of China since 2013. In his political career, Xi has worked in multiple roles ranging from the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC). He is the person who conceived the Chinese Dream – a popular slogan aimed at the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
In 2013, Xi became the President of the People’s Republic of China for the first time. In March 2018, he was reelected as the President for the second term. Recently, in October 2022, in a major departure from the Chinese Communist Party’s traditional term limits of two terms for its leader, Xi was reelected for the third term as General Secretary of the party.
Born on 15th June 1953, Xi is the son of Xi Zhongxun, who has served as Deputy Prime Minister of China in the past. He is married to Peng Liyuan, a popular folk singer.
Of late, Xi is widely criticized for his Zero Covid policy, a set of stringent rules imposed with the aim of eliminating the Covid-19 pandemic. It has led to mass public protests in the streets of China demanding to open up the markets.
3. Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has been President of Russia from 1999 to 2008 and again since 2012.
Putin’s significant achievements include signing into law a slew of liberal economic reforms during his first two terms as President. Some of the remarkable reforms include the flat income tax of 13 percent, cutting down of profits-tax, and introduction of new land and civil codes.
Last but not least, during this period, poverty in the country, dropped by more than half, and real GDP grew rapidly. By running Russia for more than 20 years, Putin owns the record for the longest time a leader has been in power since Joseph Stalin, thus making him one of the most powerful men in the world.
Born on October 7th, 1952, Putin is married to Lyudmila Shkrebneva and has two daughters.
Currently, Putin is facing the heat of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It is a major escalation of the war between Russia and Ukraine which began in 2014. In a major development, Putin suggested the use of nuclear weapons to defend those areas annexed by Ukraine.
4. Bill Gates
An American business tycoon, Bill Gates is the co-founder of Microsoft, a multinational technology company. A dropout from Harvard University, Bill went on to establish Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. Later, the company witnessed massive growth and as of December 2022, Microsoft’s market cap stands at $1.901 trillion.
Born on October 28, 1955, Bill got married to Melinda French. In the year 2000, the couple established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a private foundation.
By 2020, BMGF reportedly grew to be the second-largest charitable foundation in the world with $49.8 billion in assets, taking him to the top of the list of the world’s most powerful men. Later, in May 2021, Bill and Melinda announced their decision to divorce. However, the couple announced that they will continue to work together on charitable efforts.
In March 2020, Bill announced his decision to step down from the board of Microsoft. He informed that he would also step down from the board of Berkshire Hathaway, the American multinational conglomerate holding company. Bill went on to add that he wanted to dedicate more time to philanthropic activities.
Gates is also an ardent advocate of tackling climate change. Recently, in November 2022, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $1.4 billion to help smallholder farmers deal with the diverse effects of climate change.
5. Pope Francis
Pope Francis ranks fifth on our list of the most powerful men in the world. Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the sovereign of the Vatican City State and the spiritual leader of more than one-sixth of the world’s population since March 13, 2013.
Pope Francis has many firsts to his credit starting from being the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus, the first person who hails from the Americas, the first from the southern hemisphere, and the first pope who is a non-European after Gregory III, a Syrian who reigned in the 8th century.
Pope Francis was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 17, 1936. During his early days, he worked in multiple jobs such as that of a bouncer, janitor, and technician at a food science laboratory.
Later, in the role of Pope, Francis strived to transform the longstanding conservative image of the Catholic Church. A major achievement that deserves special mention includes giving priests the power to forgive females who opt for abortions.
He also stood for climate change reform, taking care of refugees and migrants, and pushed for greater attention to the persecution of religious minorities. However, Pope Francis always made sure that some traditional aspects of the Church are taken into consideration including a ban on female clergy members.
6. Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos is a US entrepreneur and founder, executive chairman, former president, and CEO of Amazon. He is the person who spearheaded the growth of the E-commerce industry by floating Amazon.com. Bezos is also a renowned media proprietor, investor, and commercial astronaut.
As per the latest data released in November 2022, his net worth stands at US$114.5 billion. Bezos is also the 4th richest person in the world according to Forbes.
After graduating from Princeton University in 1986, Bezos worked on Wall Street in diverse fields. It was his road trip from New York City to Seattle in late 1994 that led to the birth of Amazon.
With a humble beginning as an online bookstore, Amazon later expanded its wings to several other E-commerce products and services, including video and audio streaming, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. An avid enthusiast of space travel, Bezos founded Blue Origin, a human spaceflight startup in September 2000.
Born on January 12, 1964, Bezos got married to MacKenzie Tuttle and got separated later. They have three sons and a daughter adopted from China.
In a recent interview with CNN, Bezos announced that he is planning to give away the majority of his wealth to charity.
7. Elon Musk
The 7th name on the list is Elon Musk, a business magnate and investor. The founder, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX and CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc, Musk was recently in the news for his high-profile acquisition of Twitter, the microblogging platform for $44 billion in October 2022.
According to Forbes 2022, he is the world’s richest man, with an estimated net worth of $189.2 billion, making him the most powerful man in the world.
With this acquisition, he has become the CEO of Twitter as well. As of November 2022
Born on June 28th, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk attended the University of Pretoria. Later when he was 17, he moved to Canada. Musk’s first entrepreneurial venture was Zip2, a company he co-founded along with his brother Kimbal and Greg Kouri.
Later he co-founded several companies such as X.com, an online financial services, and e-mail payment company, Tesla, the electric car manufacturer that created a revolution, rocket producer SpaceX and tunneling startup Boring Company.
Musk is also the President of the Musk Foundation. The stated objectives of the company include providing solar-power energy systems in disaster areas; supporting research, and development, and extending help in science and engineering educational efforts. From 2002 to 2018, the Musk foundation contributed $25 million directly to non-profit organizations.
Also Read:- The 10 Most Followed Instagram Accounts In The World – Updated List 2022
8. Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud
Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, popularly referred to as MBS, is the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia. Born on 31st August 1985, MBS is the seventh son of King Salman. He is married to Sara bint Mashour, his first cousin.
In the past, MBS has served in the roles of Chairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs and Chairman of the Council of Political and Security Affairs. He has also been the Deputy prime minister as well as the Defence minister of Saudi Arabia.
In April 2016, MBS unveiled Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia’s vision for the future. The objective of the vision is to offer a fillip to the Kingdom by making it an investment powerhouse.
In November 2017, MBS spearheaded an anti-corruption campaign that ended up in the arrest of many high-profile Saudis including ministers, princes, and entrepreneurs. As a result, it led to the erosion of the wealth of ten Saudi billionaires, and their names were dropped from Forbes’ annual list of the world’s billionaires.
Other major achievements of MBS include allowing Saudi women to drive, reducing the dependence of the economy on oil, and curbing the clerics’ power over society.
9. Larry Page
Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, the world’s No.1 search engine is at the 9th position of the 10 most powerful men in the world. An American business magnate and internet entrepreneur, Page’s estimated net worth stands at $84 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index released in November 2022.
Page was born on March 26, 1973, in Lansing, Michigan. After completing his Master of Science in computer science from Stanford University in 1998, he enrolled in a computer science Ph.D. program at the same university.
There he met Sergey Brin, a fellow student with whom we co-founded Google in 1998. They both went on to invent Google’s PageRank algorithm, the ranking algorithm of the search engine named after him.
Until 2001, Page continued in the role of CEO with Google. Later he stepped down and became the CEO of Google’s new parent company Alphabet in 2015. In December 2019, he left that role but still continues to be a board member and a controlling shareholder.
Apart from that, Page is also backing Planetary Resources, a space mining company, Kitty Hawk Corporation, an American electric personal air vehicle manufacturing company, and Opener, a Silicon Valley-based flying-car start-up.
10. Narendra Modi
The last entry in the list is Narendra Modi, a politician from India and the current Prime Minister of the country since 2014. Prior to becoming Prime Minister, he served as the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014.
Modi was born in Vadnagar, Gujarat, on September 17, 1950. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1978, Modi completed his post-graduation in political science at Gujarat University later.
He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in the early 1970s and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1987. Modi was elected Prime Minister of India in the 2014 general elections and served a 5-year term. Later, in 2019, he was re-elected Prime Minister for a second term, and he has since been considered the most powerful man in the world.
The major reforms launched by the Narendra Modi government include the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, allotting free ration for the marginalized section of society, Vaccination for all – conducting the world’s largest Covid-19 vaccination drive, and the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana, providing affordable housing to everyone.
Narendra Modi is also a recipient of several prestigious international awards such as the Zayed Award from the United Arab Emirates, the Order of St Andrew from Russia, the Champions of the Earth Award from the United Nations, and the Legion of Merit from the United States of America.
Conclusion
Hope you enjoyed going through the detailed profiles of the 10 most powerful men in the world. As you know, there are women in the international arena who are equally powerful as men.
To name a few, there are ladies such as Kamala Harris, the Vice President of America, and Melinda Gates, the world-renowned philanthropist who has made a mark in their respective fields. However, while arriving at the list, we had to exclude them as the list is limited to men.
There are people who make a significant impact within a short period of time. However, while preparing the above list, we have tried to include those who have been working in their domains for quite a long time and have contributed enormously.
Each of the 10 men mentioned in the above list is an influential personality who plays a significant role in their respective fields. Moreover, they have millions of followers in real life as well as on social media platforms.
Though controversies are a part of every celebrity’s life, they still continue to be a role model for many across the world. Ultimately, it’s the powerful leaders who set an example for others with their own life.
