Godfather Snubbed: Time's 100 AI List Skips Jensen Huang — Just Like Elon Musk
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Nvidia CorporationCEO Jensen Huangis one of the most influential names in the AI sector, and to some, like tech analyst Dan Ives, he's known as the "Godfather of AI." When listing names that are reshaping AI and building on its growth in 2026, many would have a hard time coming up with 100 names more important than Huang.
That's why it may come as a big surprise that the Time 100 AI 2026 list didn't feature Huang, who was on the list the first three times it was published, starting in 2023.
Ben Affleck, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Paris Hiltonand Sen. Bernie Sanders. Those names all make the 2026 list and are said to be more influential to AI this year than Huang.
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"Meet the innovators, leaders, and thinkers reshaping our world through groundbreaking advances in artificial intelligence," Time says.
The company says the goal of the list is to find 100 individuals "who beat represent the year's key storylines and who, in our opinion, are having the most influence in driving these developments."
Also featured on this year's list are Elon Musk, AnthropicCEO Dario Amodeiand OpenAICEO Sam Altman,who many would agree are important to the AI sector. The list also includes company executives from IBM, DeepMind, ByteDance, Broadcom, Databricks, Amazon.comand Oracle.
Not including Huang seems like a miss and while the list likely tries to have new faces each year, Nvidia is as relevant to the AI sector over the last year than any other year and some could argue the company is even more important now.
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Huang Snub Echoes Musk Past Omission
Musk made the inaugural Time 100 AI list in 2023, but was famously snubbed on the 2024 list. The omission is similar to Huang being left out this year, as actress Scarlett Johanssonmade the list over him alongside other less recognizable names.
The billionaire, who leads SpaceXand Tesla, rejoined the Time 100 list last year and also made this year's list.
Musk's omission went viral on social media with many arguing that his contributions to AI via xAIand Tesla were more important than many others on the list.
This year's list skips out on many of the CEOs for Magnificent Seven companies. Musk is the only CEO of a Magnificent Seven company to be represented on the 2026 list. Executives from Amazon.com and Google make the list, but not the CEOs of the parent companies.
Time is likely caught in a tough spot as they are never going to be able to please everyone, but when it comes to AI, including Elon Musk and Jensen Huang every year might just end up being the safest play.
Image via Shutterstock
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