Power is unstable: the more you have, the more competitors you attract, shot dead for customers, celebrity employees and market share. We drilled into five of the biggest competitions in the five biggest business competitions of chips, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, investment and finance and energy. Although the rise of these incumbents and competitors is fierce, never count the dark horses that are eager to be on the top.
Check out the list of the most powerful people in 2025 here.
AI chips
Jansen Huang
CEO, President and Co-founder Nvidia – us
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang may take a moment to lift his company’s rapid rise to the top of the stock market, the pinnacle of the stock market that has soared demand for high-performance chips and driven AI. Now The most valuable company in the worldNVIDIA controls more than 90% of the professional chip market used to train and run AI systems, which dominance in the hardware competition fuels the AI boom. Despite this, Huang is still paying attention to the horizon. AMD positions itself as a viable optionwhile startups such as Groq, Cerebras and Sambanova are betting on custom chips designed to accelerate AI inference. None of them poses a serious threat to Nvidia’s dominance.
Lisa is
AMD CEO and Chair – United States
AMD CEO Lisa Su never met her first cousin, Jensen Huang, until both sides rose to lead the world’s two most powerful chip manufacturers. “No family dinner.” Su said in a recent interview. “It’s an interesting coincidence.” But now the two people cannot avoid it now. With the company’s headquarters in the same Silicon Valley town just a few miles apart, AMD is working to use itself as a viable second source of AI chips, and the demand for AI chips is rising. The company has won the win from the main players Microsoft and meta- both desire to diversify their supply chains and reduce dependence on Nvidia’s tightly controlled hardware and software ecosystem. –Salon Goldman
Musk: Win McNami-Gate Image; Wang: VCG/Getty Image
Electric cars
Elon Musk
CEO, co-founder and other characters Tesla, SpaceXxai and others – us
Elon Musk, the man who brought electric cars to Volkswagen, has seen it Tesla’s fate erodes when it gets tangled in social media and politics. Tesla’s annual delivery declined for the first time in history in 2024, and has since declined every quarter. Musk bet on Tesla’s AI and camera-only autonomous driving systems, Robotaxi June and its humanoid robots continue to develop. Critics believe the company’s autonomous driving technology is far behind Alphabet’s Waymo and Bit. although Tesla Still the most valuable car company in the world, it is not clear that it will remain the highest.
Wang Chuanfu
CEO, Chairman and Founder, China
The late Charlie Munger is one of the most successful investors of all time. In 2023, when Byd began to duel with Tesla and became the number one in electric vehicle sales, the US automobile industry began to pay attention. Bied’s affordable model, ultrafast charging technology and free driver assistance system help The company gains 20% of the global electric vehicle market. BYD is also the world’s second largest electric battery manufacturer to date, with its innovative blade batteries using iron and phosphate to help keep prices low. –Jessica Mathews
Altman: Joel Saget – AFP/Getty Images; Zuckerberg: Chris Unger – Zuffa LLC
AI
Sam Altman
CEO and Co-founder of Openai – United States
Altman’s leadership over Openai made him one of the most powerful, polarized figures in Silicon Valley. AI companies are quickly getting on top Tech’s table. There are more than 780 million CHATGPT users per weeklarge companies and government clients, as well as from office productivity software to New hardware devices Built from the past apple Designer Jony Ive. In March, SoftBank-led venture capital round valued at nearly $300 billionOpenai is expected to generate more than $10 billion in revenue this year (while still losing billions of dollars).
Mark Zuckerberg
CEO, Chairman and Founder Yuan – us
Ultraman’s rapid rise made him a lot of enemies. He fell a few years ago with Elon Musk and recently with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Poaching millions of dollars in Openai employees. Google Deep state Compete with OpenAI to build the most powerful AI model, Chatgpt also poses an existential risk for Google’s Internet search domination. Meanwhile, there is no loss of love between Altman and the Human Co-founder, who defected from Openai in 2021, partly due to concerns about Altman’s leadership and commitment to AI security. –Jeremy Kahn
Dimon: Al Drago -Bloomberg/Getty Images; Rowan: Yuki Iwamura -Bloomberg/Getty Images
finance
Jamie Dimon
JPMorgan Chase CEO and Chairman – United States
Jamie Dimon was the undisputed dean of Wall Street when the 20th anniversary of the founding of the largest bank in the country, and was ready to become one of the greatest bankers of all time. During times of crisis, the market uses Dimon as a clear and undifferentiated source of authority. His figure grew up in 2024 JPMorgan Chase Recorded $58.5 billion in profits with $278.9 billion in revenue. Dimon also responds to growing competition in the private equity community by having JPM build its own private credit facility and warns Apollo and others. Stop poaching junior bankers.
Marc Rowan
CEO, Chairman and Co-founder, Apollo Global Management – us
Marc Rowan, who was once a corporate lawyer, has become a major figure in a fast-growing world of private equity in recent years. In 2021, Rowan became CEO of Apollo, who co-founded Apollo and made a bold strategic shift around Private Credit, a field that doubled to $2 trillion in the past five years. The hub is very profitable, helping Apollo gear reach $1.49 billion in profits in the fourth quarter of 2024. Rowan’s private credit allegations pose an increasingly serious challenge to traditional banks such as JPMorgan Chase, as Apollo and others become the preferred lending venue for large corporations and institutions. –Jeff John Roberts
Woods: Andrey Rudakov – Bloomberg/Getty Images; Wirth: Hollie Adams – Bloomberg/Getty Images
vitality
Darren Woods
ExxonMobil CEO and Chairman – United States
Missed the shale gas boom in the United States ExxonMobil when Darren Woods Take over as CEO in 2017. While it was the largest publicly traded company in mid-2013, Exxon was kicked out of the pandemic during the 2020 pandemic. Dow Jonesand competition Herringbone For the first time ever, it briefly surpassed it with value. But Woods’ focus on capital discipline, shareholder returns and mergers and acquisitions brought ExxonMobil back on the industry, where it led shale production in the booming Permian Basin. Its oil discovery in Guyana offshore is envy of the energy world.
Mike Wirth
Chevron CEO and Chairman – United States
Mike Wirth was Chevron Lifer who joined engineer in 1982 and took over Exxon Mobil in 2018. After several years as an investor energy player, Chevron is now facing a revitalized ExxonMobil. They are competitors in the Permian Basin. They just ended their long-term arbitration competition Guyana’s controversy. They even compete in the rapidly growing U.S. lithium business. Both remain focused on fossil fuels and related low-carbon businesses, while Europeans bp and shell Strive to grow green energy. at the same time, Total energy It is the only oil major that doubles its renewable energy focus. –Jordan Blum
This article appears in August/September 2025 question wealth.
