TIME published its fourth annual list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence on August 27, 2026. Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and the Amodei siblings (Anthropic) are among the honorees, alongside Chinese AI leaders including Eddie Wu (Alibaba) and Yang Zhilin (Moonshot AI). The AI landscape has been reshaped by major mergers, notably the xAI-SpaceX merger valued at approximately $1.7 trillion in June 2026, and Meta’s acquisition of Manus for $2 to $3 billion in late 2025. A notable absence from the list is Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA. Senator Bernie Sanders appears on the list after raising concerns about superintelligence risks.
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