Vanity Fair, a popular American magazine, has published its New Establishment 2026 list, identifying the 50 most influential people in the world. Kursiv LifeStyle looked through the ranking.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI — the company behind the famous chatbot ChatGPT — took the top spot. According to the magazine, Altman may one day be seen as the «Oppenheimer of our time, a single person determining the reality we inhabit.»
Who else made the top 5?
Second place: Dario Amodei, head of Anthropic, the company that created the Claude AI assistant
Third place: Elon Musk, head of Tesla, SpaceX and the social network X
Fourth place: Jensen Huang, head of AI chip giant Nvidia
Fifth place: Kevin Warsh, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve
Thus, the top spots are held by tech leaders whose innovations are shaping the planet’s future. The list, however, also includes U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and executives from Google, Netflix and YouTube.
Along with representatives of high-tech companies, the ranking also features prominent figures such as Pope Leo XIV and film director Christopher Nolan.
Chanel creative director Matthieu Blazy also made the list, becoming the only designer included. The children of LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault — Delphine, Antoine, Alexandre, Frédéric and Jean — also appear on the list.
The list also includes Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny and «American Horror Story» creator Ryan Murphy.
