Time magazine snubs Charlie Kirk, names AI 'architects' as 'Person of the Year'
Time magazine is facing backlash from one of conservative media’s biggest voices over its decision to snub Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk as its “Person of the Year” despite Kirk’s death marking the first major political assassination in the U.S. since the 1960s.
Instead, the century-old magazine gave its annual award to a collective of tech titans leading the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, framing the year as a tipping point when the technology "roared into view" with irreversible momentum.
Time's announcement, unveiled Thursday, celebrated the "Architects of AI" as the magazine's 2025 honorees, with a reimagined version of the iconic 1930s photograph "Lunch Atop a Skyscraper" as its cover art. Replacing the classic photo’s hard-hatted construction workers were eight suited tech leaders perched on a beam overlooking New York City: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, founder of World Labs.
Time also shared an alternate cover image on social media, featuring towering "AI" letters wrapped in scaffolding that resembled digital wiring, along with the caption, "For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the possible, the Architects of AI are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year.”
Editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs defended the unconventional group pick Thursday in an explanatory essay, noting Time's tradition of straying from individuals when warranted. "We’ve named not just individuals but also groups, more women than our founders could have imagined (though still not enough), and, on rare occasions, a concept: the endangered Earth, in 1988, or the personal computer, in 1982," Jacobs wrote.
This year's choice, Jacobs argued, spotlights "the individuals who imagined, designed, and built AI" rather than the tech itself, noting the undeniable parallels between the rise of AI and the advent of the personal computer in the early 1980s.
"This was the year when artificial intelligence’s full potential roared into view, and when it became clear that there will be no turning back or opting out," he wrote.
Time, acquired in 2018 by Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff — who has dubbed AI "probably the most important" tech wave of his lifetime — insisted Benioff stays out of editorial calls. The tradition, dating to 1927, honors whoever "most shaped headlines over the previous 12 months."
Prediction markets had pegged AI — along with Huang and Altman — as frontrunners, but Kirk's name loomed large in conservative circles, out-Googling even Trump, the 2024 winner who succeeded Taylor Swift. Other contenders included Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff elected after Pope Francis' death; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
In an on-air tirade on Thursday’s episode of “The Megyn Kelly Show,” the veteran journalist and podcaster unleashed on Time magazine's decision, slamming the choice as "a thumb in the eye, and it's genuinely wrong," accusing the publication of ignoring "reality based on your own politics."
"It's [expletive] AI. It's AI architects. It's not Charlie Kirk, which is so obvious," said Kelly. "It's as obvious as the nose on your face."
Pointing to Time’s previous controversial choices for Person of the Year, including Vladimir Putin and Ayatollah Khomeini, Kelly accused the media outlet of playing politics.
“AI architects are not the most influential people of the year,” she said. “To ignore what happened with Charlie Kirk in September and the worldwide revival of faith that followed his assassination is to ignore reality based on your own politics.”
The snub, coming just three months after Kirk's shocking assassination on Sept. 10 at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, raised even more questions because Kirk wasn’t even listed as an “honorable mention,” said Kelly.
