Jensen Huang Snubbed From TIME 100 AI List as Paris Hilton and Ben Affleck Make the Cut

TIME 100 AI List Excludes Industry Titans

TIME Magazine published its fourth annual TIME 100 AI list last week, notably excluding Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Lisa Su from the 2026 roster1

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. The omission of Jensen Huang is particularly striking given his designation as one of TIME's eight "Architects of AI" and his appearance on every previous edition of the TIME 100 AI list since its inception in 20233

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. Instead, Paris Hilton, Ben Affleck, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Senator Bernie Sanders secured spots on this year's list3

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. Nvidia's sole representative is Josh Parker, the company's head of sustainability, who appears under the Thinkers category1

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Nvidia's Unmatched Market Dominance

The timing of the omission coincides with Nvidia reporting one of the largest quarterly earnings in American corporate history. The company's second-quarter results, announced August 26, totaled $96.2 billion in revenue, including $89 billion from data centers, representing 117% year-over-year growth1

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. Nvidia became the first company to cross a $5 trillion market cap last October, posting a $57 billion record quarter three weeks later1

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. The company's GPUs power the training infrastructure for all frontier AI models, making them the fundamental building block of modern AI tools2

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. Nvidia's chips have become so critical to global tech infrastructure that they serve as a leverage point in the U.S.-China AI race, with the federal government restricting their export to China under both Biden and Trump administrations2

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Lisa Su's Puzzling Absence

Lisa Su's exclusion appears equally perplexing given her strong TIME back catalog. The magazine named her its 2024 CEO of the Year, featured her on the 2024 AI list and the main TIME100 in 2025, and included her among December's Architects of AI1

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. AMD and Nvidia together dominate the GPU manufacturing landscape that underpins AI development, yet neither CEO appears on this year's list while executives from Broadcom, Micron, SMIC, and Huawei HiSilicon all secured positions1

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Who Made the Cut Instead

TIME editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs explained that senior editor Ayesha Javed led the selection process, aiming to identify 100 individuals "who best represent the year's key storylines and who, in our opinion, are having the most influence in driving these developments"2

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. The 2026 list includes Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Dario Amodei under the Leaders category, alongside executives from IBM, DeepMind, ByteDance, Databricks, Amazon.com, and Oracle3

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. Ben Affleck earned his spot for founding InterPositive in 2022, a company helping filmmakers build AI-powered post-production tools, which Netflix acquired for a reported $587 million2

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. Paris Hilton was recognized for advocacy work against nonconsensual sexual deepfakes2

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Pattern of Controversial Omissions

This isn't the first time TIME's AI list has sparked controversy over notable exclusions. Elon Musk appeared on the inaugural TIME 100 AI list in 2023 but was famously snubbed from the 2024 edition, with actress Scarlett Johansson making the list instead3

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. Musk rejoined the list in 2025 and appears again in 2026, making him the only CEO of a Magnificent Seven company represented this year3

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. Mark Zuckerberg and Demis Hassabis, both previously honored as Architects of AI alongside Huang, were also excluded from the 2026 roster2

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Industry Reaction and Implications

Tech analyst Dan Ives refers to Jensen Huang as the "Godfather of AI," underscoring his influence in the sector3

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. Industry observers note that Nvidia has become known as the "central bank of AI" due to its presence in circular deals underpinning AI infrastructure buildout2

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. The 2026 list does include Nvidia's HBM supplier, two of its biggest GPU cloud customers including CoreWeave's Michael Intrator and Nscale's Josh Payne, custom-accelerator rivals like Cerebras' Andrew Feldman, and Chinese competitors attempting to replace Nvidia altogether1

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. The exclusion of picks and shovels companies' leaders while including pop culture icons reveals TIME's editorial priorities, though many argue that GPU manufacturers and their executives remain the real power brokers in the AI ecosystem2

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