u/Old-School8916

source: https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2044205469439295531

Scurry

source: The Economist

methodology: *Composite ranking based on company revenue, employment and market capitalisation, along with tycoon's corporate control and wealth

summary of article:

The Economist ranked america's most powerful business tycoons across 150 years of tech waves, from railways to AI, using a composite score of company revenue, employment, market cap, corporate control, and personal wealth. henry ford came out on top, not rockefeller, mainly because ford motor employed ~0.15% of the entire US population and ford owned the company outright after 1919. the big takeaway for AI? altman, amodei, and hassabis all land in the bottom half of the ranking. their companies are still young, employ relatively few people, and none of them have the kind of iron-fisted corporate control that old-school tycoons had. musk and zuckerberg rank higher but mostly because of tesla/spacex and meta's social media dominance, not AI specifically. the article argues AI's ford or rockefeller hasn't emerged yet , but historically one always does.

https://www.economist.com/business/2026/04/16/could-ais-leading-men-become-as-powerful-as-ford-or-rockefeller