Time magazine’s list of The 100 Most Influential People in the World came out Thursday, revealing a tremendous diversity in choices that ranged from Kanye West to Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
The magazine is out with five special covers, and along with West and Ginsberg, those will feature actor Bradley Cooper, ballerina Misty Copeland, and TV anchor Jorge Ramos.
Categorized as titans, pioneers, artists, leaders, and icons, the Time 100 list is rife with names everyone recognizes — like West’s wife, Kim Kardashian — and those that take a minute to recall, like astronaut Scott Kelly, who is spending a year aboard the International Space Station.
Elon Musk, entrepreneur and engineer, wrote about West’s selection as a titan, and called the rapper a “boundary breaker.”
“Kanye West would be the first person to tell you he belongs on this list. The dude doesn’t believe in false modesty, and he shouldn’t,” Musk wrote. “Kanye’s belief in himself and his incredible tenacity — he performed his first single with his jaw wired shut — got him to where he is today. … Kanye does think. Constantly. About everything. And he wants everybody else to do the same: to engage, question, push boundaries. … Kanye’s been playing the long game all along, and we’re only just beginning to see why.”
Others on the list include United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power, Pope Francis, Taylor Swift, Kim Jong Un, Mitch McConnell, and presidential hopeful Jeb Bush.
Five women scientists made the list: Dr. Joanne Liu, international president of Doctors Without Borders; Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jenifer Doudna, creators of gene-editing tech; Dr. Pardis Sabeti, the geneticist who sequenced the Ebola genome during the recent outbreak; and Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos, a blood-testing company, who also made Forbes’ Billionaries List as the “youngest self-made woman billionaire,” Time said.
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