President-elect Donald Trump was named Time’s 2024 Person of the Year on Thursday.
This follows a tradition since 2000 in which the candidate who wins the U.S. presidential election every fourth year becomes Time’s Person of the Year, with former President George W. Bush winning it twice in 2000 and 2004 and former President Barack Obama doing so in 2008 and 2012.
“This year, it was an easier decision than in years past,” Time magazine Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs said on the Today show.
Jacobs said his outlet spent more time on the record with the president-elect this year than any other outlet. This was the 97th year that the magazine named the most influential person in the news.
Google released its top searches of 2024, in which Trump was among the top trending people. The “U.S. Election” was the top trending news search globally, over all other international elections that took place this year.
Despite the tradition, other nominees included Vice President Kamala Harris, who shared the title with President Joe Biden in 2020; Princess of Wales Kate Middleton, who revealed a cancer diagnosis this year; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spent the full calendar year in a war against Hamas; and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Others included comedian Joe Rogan, Russian economist Yulia Navalnaya, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
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The magazine, which last interviewed Trump in the spring, will debut its issue with Trump on the cover beginning Friday.
Last year’s winner was pop star Taylor Swift, who at the time was in the middle of her two-year multimillion-dollar grossing Eras Tour. Other previous Persons of the Year include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2022, months after the war in Ukraine started, and climate change activist Greta Thunberg in 2019.
