Time has narrowed its short list for its 2024 Person of the Year to five prominent figures ranging from political leaders to royalty.
Ahead of their exclusive reveal of the Person of the Year on TODAY on Dec. 12, the magazine's editors narrowed their initial list from 10 figures to five on TODAY on Dec. 11.
Time has named a Person of the Year every year since 1927, from historic world leaders to cultural figures.
Last year, the magazine named pop superstar Taylor Swift as its Person of the Year. The 2022 recipient was Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy for his leadership amid the invasion by Russia.
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The short list initially featured 10 people, who were announced Dec. 9.
Here is the group of five from which the 2024 Person of the Year will be chosen.
Kamala Harris
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The vice president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee lost to President-elect Donald Trump after becoming the party’s nominee less than three months before the election. She clinched the nomination just weeks after President Joe Biden announced he would not be running for reelection in the wake of a disastrous debate performance against Trump.
Kate Middleton
The Princess of Wales has endured a trying year after announcing in March that she has an unspecified form of cancer. Her announcement came after rumors and conspiracy theories about her health proliferated during her absence from the public eye following an announced abdominal surgery. She shared in September that she had completed her chemotherapy and returned to work.
Elon Musk
The world’s richest man and the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX became a staunch supporter of President-elect Donald Trump this year, spending more than $250 million to help fund his run for president and turning another one of Musk's companies, X, into a bullhorn for Trump's campaign. Trump selected Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory commission aimed at overhauling the federal budget and bureaucracy. Musk said he wants to cut $2 trillion from federal spending in part by cutting the workforce of government employees.
Benjamin Netanyahu
The Israeli prime minister became a polarizing figure amid a multifront war in Gaza and Lebanon. Health officials in Gaza said that 44,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in which Israeli officials said some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage by Hamas. Israel’s Cabinet approved a ceasefire with Hezbollah on Nov. 26 to end hostilities in Lebanon. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November for alleged war crimes — charges that Netanyahu’s office called “antisemitic” and “absurd.”
Donald Trump
Trump will become the first U.S. president since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s to return to office after losing a previous presidential race, completing a stunning political comeback from the end of his first term in 2020. He defeated Kamala Harris 312-226 in the Electoral College and won the popular vote as Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Most recently, his controversial nominees for Cabinet positions in his second administration have come under scrutiny.
Who did not Time's short list for Person of the Year?
Alexei Navalny's wife, Yulia, did not make the short list.
In October, she helped promote the posthumous release of Navalny’s bestselling memoir that tells the story of his political ascent and his time in prison.
Also falling short of the final five sports were Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, podcast host Joe Rogan and Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum.
Here's a look at the biographies of those who qualified Time's long list for Person of the Year in 2024.
Yulia Navalnaya
The widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who lives abroad, has been a face of the resistance to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime. Navalny died in a Russian penal colony in February, and Navalnaya has accused Putin of ordering his death and vowed to continue her husband’s work with his anti-corruption foundation.
Mark Zuckerberg
The Meta CEO began the year being grilled by parents over online child safety at a Senate hearing and ended it by releasing an acoustic version of Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz’ “Get Low” with T-Pain. In between, the world’s second-richest person alleged in a letter to Congress that the Biden White House “repeatedly” pressured Facebook to take down “certain COVID-19 content” during the pandemic. He also praised President-elect Donald Trump for his response to an assassination attempt.
Jerome Powell
The chairman of the Federal Reserve has been under the spotlight all year while trying to navigate a “soft landing” from inflation by deciding on any interest rate cuts. He also has become a target for President-elect Donald Trump, who nominated Powell in 2017 during his first administration. Powell said in November that he would not resign if asked by Trump, asserting that he would not be legally required to leave until his term ends in 2026. He also has weighed in with comments about cryptocurrency amid the meteoric rise of bitcoin.
Joe Rogan
The most popular podcaster in America also became a prominent figure in the presidential race when he interviewed President-elect Donald Trump in October during Trump’s campaign. Tens of millions of people listened to the interview, showing the rising power of podcasts and the reach of nontraditional media. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was invited onto the podcast but did not appear, which also became a campaign story.
Claudia Sheinbaum
Sheinbaum made history as Mexico’s first female president and first of Jewish heritage when she took office in October. The former mayor of Mexico City most recently sparred with President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened to impose a 25% tariff on all goods imported from Mexico until Mexico stops the flow of fentanyl and crime over the U.S. border. Sheinbaum responded to Trump in December by saying Mexico’s people “are being killed by the crime that is responding to the demand in your country.”
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