Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Forbes: Netanyahu 23rd Most Powerful Person

President Obama for the second straight year was named the world’s most powerful person by Forbes magazine, which placed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 23rd on the list.

The list includes 71 individuals – one for every 100 million people on the planet.

Other notable Jews on the list included Ben Bernake, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, at No. 6; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, at 16; Google co-founder Sergey Brin, at 20; Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, at 25; and Goldman-Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, at 36.

Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, which develops and manufactures space launch vehicles, at age 41 is among the youngest on the list and appears at No. 66.

Following Obama in the top 10 are German Chancellor Angela Merkel; Russian President Vladimir Putin; Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates; Pope Benedict XVI; King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia; European Central Bank President Mario Draghi; Xi Jinping, the secretary-general of China’s Communist Party; and British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Khamenei finished two slots ahead of Netanyahu.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.