The power is unstable. The more it is, the more competitors you have, targeting customers, star employees and market share. We've delved into five of our biggest and biggest rivalries in our business, beyond chips, AI, EVs, investment and finance, and energy. And while the rise of these incumbents and rivals is fierce, they never count dark horses starving for their top spots.
Check out the 2025 Fortune Most Poffight People list.
AI chip
Jensen Fan
CEO, President, Co-Founder, Nvidia – USA
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang may be allowed to spend a bit of time savoring the meteoric rise of his company as he is driven by a surge in demand for high-performance chips that power generation AI. Today, the world's most valuable company, Nvidia manages more than 90% of the specialized tips used to train and operate AI systems. Still, Huang keeps his eye on the horizon. While AMD positions itself as a viable alternative, startups like Groq, Cerebras and Sambanova are betting on custom chips designed to accelerate AI inference. Nothing poses a serious threat to Nvidia's control.
Lisa Su
CEO and Chairman, AMD – USA
AMD CEO Lisa Su never met Jensen Huang, the first cousin to be removed once, before rising to lead the world's two most powerful chipmakers. “There was no family dinner,” Su said in a recent interview. “That's an interesting coincidence.” But the two can't avoid each other now. With its headquarters just a few miles away in the same Silicon Valley town, AMD is striving to establish itself as the second viable source of AI chips amid burgeoning demand. The company has secured victory from key players such as Microsoft and Meta. Both want to diversify their supply chains and reduce NVIDIA's reliance on their tightly controlled hardware and software ecosystem. –Sharon Goldman
Mask: Win McNamee- getty Images; Wang: VCG/Getty Images
Electric car
Elon Musk
CEO, co-founder and other roles, Tesla, SpaceX, Xai, etc. – USA
Elon Musk, who brought EV to the masses, has seen Tesla's fate eroded as he gets caught up in social media and politics. Tesla's annual delivery for the first time in 2024 was declining, and has since continued to decline year by year from quarter to year. Musk is betting its future on Tesla's AI and camera-only autonomous driving systems, with the launch of Soft Robotxy in June and the ongoing development of its humanoid robots. Critics argue that the company's autonomous driving technology lies behind competitor engineers like Alphabet's Waymo and BYD. Tesla remains the most valuable automotive company in the world, but it is not clear that it will remain at the top.
King Chuanhu
CEO, Chairman and Founder, BYD – China
One of the most successful investors of all time, the late Charlie Munger described BYD founder and CEO Wang Chuanfu as a hardworking “genius.” In 2023, when BYD began dueling Tesla at the top spot in EV sales, the US auto industry began to attract attention. BYD's affordable models, ultra-fast charging technology and free driver assistance system helped them win 20% of the global EV market. BYD is the world's second largest EV battery manufacturer to date, and features innovative blade batteries to keep prices low using iron and phosphate. –Jessica Matthews
Altman: Joel Saaget – AFP/Getty Images; Zuckerberg: Chris Unger — Zuffa LLC
artificial intelligence
Sam Altman
CEO and co-founder, Openai – USA
Open Altman's leadership has made him one of the most powerful and polarizing numbers in Silicon Valley. AI companies are rapidly elevating to the top tables of Tech, with plans to expand in areas ranging from over 780 million ChatGPT users per week, large corporate and government customers, and office productivity software to new hardware devices built by former Apple designer Jony Ive. Valued at nearly $300 billion in the SoftBank-led venture capital round in March, Openai is on track to generate more than $10 billion in revenue this year (losing billions of dollars a year).
Mark Zuckerberg
CEO, Chairman and Founder, Meta – USA
Altman's meteor rise created him plenty of enemies. He dropped out with Elon Musk years ago and recently collided with Meta's Mark Zuckerberg. Google DeepMind competes with OpenAI to build the most capable AI model, and ChatGPT poses existential risk to Google's Internet search advantage. Meanwhile, there is no love between Altman and the human co-founder who defected from Openai in 2021 due to concerns about Altman's leadership and commitment to AI safety. –Jeremy Kahn
Dimon: Al Drago -Bloomberg/Getty Images;Rowan: Yuki Iwamura -Bloomberg/Getty Images
finance
Jamie Dimon
JPMorgan Chase CEO and Chairman – Us
As he celebrates his 20th anniversary as CEO of the nation's largest bank, Jamie Dimon is the uncontroversial dean of Wall Street and is poised to take history as one of the greatest bankers of all time. In times of crisis, the market transforms into Dimon as a source of clear and unvarrogant authority. His height grew when he led JPMorgan Chase in 2024, earning $58.5 billion at $278.9 billion. Dimon also handles growing competition from the private equity world by having JPM establish its own private credit facility and issuing warning shots to Apollo and others to stop poaching junior bunkers.
Mark Rowan
CEO, Chair, and Apollo Global Management, USA
Former corporate lawyer Mark Rowan has emerged in recent years as the dominant figure in a rapidly growing world of private equity. In 2021, Rowan became CEO of Apollo, and he co-founded it, opening up a bold strategic shift revolving around private credit that has doubled to around $2 trillion over the past five years. Pivot was extremely advantageous, with Apollo earnings of $1.49 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024. Rowan's personal credit fees are growing for traditional banks like JPMorgan Chase as Apollo and others become rental venues for large businesses and institutions. –Jeff John Roberts
Woods: Andrei Rudakov – Bloomberg/Getty Images. Wirth: Hollie Adams – Bloomberg/Getty Images
Energy
Darren Woods
CEO and Chairman, Exxon Mobil – USA
ExxonMobil, which missed the US shale gas boom, caught up in 2017 when Darren Woods took over as CEO. In mid-2013, it was recently the largest public company by market capitalization, but it hit its first time in the 2020 pandemic kicked by Doe. However, Woods focuses on capital discipline, shareholder returns and M&A, with Exxon returning to the top of the industry, leading the shale output of the booming Permian Basin. The discovery of oil in Guyana offshore is a vy hope for the world of energy.
Mike Worth
CEO and Chairman, Chevron – USA
Mike Worth, a Chevron lifeform who joined as an engineer in 1982, took over in 2018 a year after Woods at ExxonMobil. After several years as a beloved investor, Chevron is now facing an activated exon. They are rivals in the Permian Basin. They only settled long arbitration rivalry against the dispute in Guyana. They are even rivals in the fast-growing US lithium business. Both continued to focus on fossil fuels and associated low-carbon ventures, with Europeans BP and Shell struggling to grow green energy. Total energy, on the other hand, is the only oil major that doubles the focus of renewable energy. –Jordan Blum
This article is published in the August/September 2025 issue luck.
