Nearly a decade later, the New Establishment returns with new stories to tell. First among them is that of artificial intelligence, a technology so dramatically presaged that it regularly inspires references to Prometheus. Our list also documents the changing nature of money—of cryptocurrency and of prediction markets—as well as the infusion of politics into every aspect of business, and vice versa. Vanity Fair’s chief photographer, Annie Leibovitz, took the portraits that accompanied the first New Establishment, and she returns here with a portfolio every bit as ambitious.
The most profound difference between then and now, however, is not the industries, or the technologies, or the demographics (the list is unfortunately still mostly white and male). It is that so many in the New Establishment are currently at odds with the greater society. Much of today’s New Establishment behaves like the antiestablishment. Heroes, it turns out, are hard to come by. But perhaps nowhere else are you likely to find a group that includes both Elon Musk and Kaitlan Collins; Pope Leo XIV and New York Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien; Tucker Carlson and New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani; the next generations of Ellisons, Murdochs, and Arnaults.
Our editors composed this list to reflect the world as we see it, rather than how we’d like it to be: For better or for worse, we said. Several entrants are among the most controversial people on earth, widely perceived as supranational supervillains—post-morality in anticipation of becoming post-human. The AI philosopher kings and their fallen-angel investors make yesterday’s moguls seem quaint.
