Energy is precarious: The extra of it you possess, the extra opponents you entice, gunning to your clients, star workers, and market share. We drilled down on 5 of the greatest rivalries in enterprise, throughout chips, AI, EVs, investing and finance, and power. And although these incumbents and rising rivals are fierce, by no means depend out the darkish horses who’re hungry for a spot on the high.
Take a look at the 2025 Fortune Most Highly effective Folks record right here.
AI chips
Jensen Huang
CEO, President, and Cofounder, Nvidia — U.S.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is likely to be forgiven for taking a second to savor his firm’s meteoric rise to the highest of the inventory market, pushed by hovering demand for its high-performance chips that energy generative AI. Now essentially the most priceless firm on the earth, Nvidia controls over 90% of the marketplace for the specialised chips used to coach and run AI programs—cementing its dominance within the {hardware} race fueling the AI increase. Nonetheless, Huang is keeping track of the horizon. AMD is positioning itself as a viable different, whereas startups like Groq, Cerebras, and SambaNova are betting on customized chips designed to speed up AI inference. None pose a severe risk to Nvidia’s dominance—but.
Lisa Su
CEO and Chair, AMD — U.S.
AMD CEO Lisa Su by no means met her first cousin as soon as eliminated, Jensen Huang, till each had risen to steer two of essentially the most highly effective chipmakers on the earth. “There have been no household dinners,” Su mentioned in a latest interview. “It’s an fascinating coincidence.” However the two can’t keep away from one another now. With company headquarters simply miles aside in the identical Silicon Valley city, AMD is pushing arduous to ascertain itself as a viable second supply for AI chips amid surging demand. The corporate has secured wins from main gamers like Microsoft and Meta—each desirous to diversify their provide chains and scale back dependence on Nvidia’s tightly managed {hardware} and software program ecosystem. —Sharon Goldman
Musk: Win McNamee—Getty Pictures; Wang: VCG/Getty Pictures
Electrical automobiles
Elon Musk
CEO, Cofounder, and different roles, Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, and others — U.S.
Elon Musk, the person who introduced EVs to the plenty, has seen Tesla’s fortunes erode as he will get entangled in social media and politics. Tesla’s annual deliveries in 2024 declined for the primary time ever, and have continued to say no 12 months over 12 months every quarter since. Musk has wager the long run on Tesla’s AI and camera-only self-driving system, with a comfortable robotaxi launch in June and the continuing growth of its humanoid robotic. Critics argue the corporate’s self-driving tech is properly behind that of opponents like Alphabet’s Waymo and BYD. Whereas Tesla remains to be essentially the most priceless auto firm on the earth, it’s not clear it can preserve the highest spot.
Wang Chuanfu
CEO, Chairman, and Founder, BYD — China
The late Charlie Munger, one of the crucial profitable traders of all time, described Wang Chuanfu, founder and CEO of BYD, as a hardworking “genius.” In 2023, when BYD started dueling with Tesla for the highest spot in EV gross sales, the U.S. auto trade began paying consideration. BYD’s inexpensive fashions, ultrafast charging expertise, and complimentary driver help programs have helped the corporate garner 20% of the worldwide EV market. BYD can also be the world’s second-largest EV battery producer up to now, with its modern Blade Battery utilizing iron and phosphate to assist preserve costs low. —Jessica Mathews
ALTMAN: JOEL SAGET—AFP/Getty Pictures; Zuckerberg: Chris Unger—Zuffa LLC
Synthetic Intelligence
Sam Altman
CEO and Cofounder, OpenAI — U.S.
Altman’s management of OpenAI has made him one in all Silicon Valley’s strongest, and polarizing, figures. The AI firm is quickly ascending to tech’s high desk, with greater than 780 million weekly ChatGPT customers, huge company and authorities clients, and enlargement plans in areas starting from workplace productiveness software program to a brand new {hardware} machine being constructed by former Apple designer Jony Ive. Valued at virtually $300 billion in a enterprise capital spherical led by SoftBank in March, OpenAI is on monitor to generate greater than $10 billion in income this 12 months (whereas nonetheless shedding billions of {dollars} yearly).
Mark Zuckerberg
CEO, Chairman, and Founder, Meta — U.S.
Altman’s meteoric rise has made him loads of enemies. He fell out with Elon Musk years in the past and has clashed lately with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, who has been poaching OpenAI workers with multimillion-dollar comp packages. Google DeepMind competes with OpenAI to construct essentially the most succesful AI fashions, and ChatGPT additionally poses an existential threat to Google’s dominance of web search. In the meantime, there’s no love misplaced between Altman and the Anthropic cofounders, who defected from OpenAI in 2021 partly due to issues about Altman’s management and dedication to AI security. —Jeremy Kahn
Dimon: Al Drago—Bloomberg/Getty Pictures; ROWAN: Yuki Iwamura—Bloomberg/Getty Pictures
Finance
Jamie Dimon
CEO and Chairman, JPMorgan Chase — U.S.
As he closes in on his twentieth anniversary as CEO of the nation’s greatest financial institution, Jamie Dimon is the undisputed dean of Wall Avenue and is poised to go down in historical past as one of many biggest bankers of all time. In instances of disaster, the markets flip to Dimon as a supply of clear and unvarnished authority. His stature grew in 2024 when he led JPMorgan Chase to document income of $58.5 billion on $278.9 billion in income. Dimon has additionally responded to rising competitors from the non-public fairness world by having JPM set up non-public credit score services of its personal—and issuing a warning shot to Apollo and others to cease poaching junior bankers.
Marc Rowan
CEO, Chair, and Cofounder, Apollo World Administration — U.S.
Marc Rowan, a onetime company lawyer, has emerged in recent times because the dominant determine within the fast-growing world of personal fairness. In 2021, Rowan turned CEO of Apollo, which he cofounded, and carved out a daring strategic shift revolving round non-public credit score, a area that has doubled over the previous 5 years to round $2 trillion. The pivot was extremely profitable, serving to Apollo notch $1.49 billion in income in This fall of 2024. Rowan’s non-public credit score cost poses a rising problem to conventional banks like JPMorgan Chase, as Apollo and others change into the go-to lending venues for giant firms and establishments. —Jeff John Roberts
Woods: Andrey Rudakov—Bloomberg/Getty Pictures; Wirth: Hollie Adams—Bloomberg/Getty Pictures
Vitality
Darren Woods
CEO and Chairman, Exxon Mobil — U.S.
Having missed out on the U.S. shale gasoline increase, Exxon Mobil was taking part in catch-up when Darren Woods took over as CEO in 2017. Whereas it was the most important publicly traded firm by market cap as lately as mid-2013, Exxon bottomed out amid the pandemic in 2020 when it was kicked out of the Dow, and archrival Chevron briefly surpassed it in worth for the primary time ever. However Woods’ concentrate on capital self-discipline, shareholder returns, and M&A has Exxon again on high of the trade, the place it leads shale output within the booming Permian Basin. Its oil discoveries in offshore Guyana are the envy of the power world.
Mike Wirth
CEO and Chairman, Chevron — U.S.
A Chevron lifer who joined as an engineer in 1982, Mike Wirth took over in 2018—one 12 months after Woods at Exxon Mobil. After serving because the power darling of traders for a couple of years, Chevron now faces a revitalized Exxon. They’re rivals within the Permian Basin. They simply settled an extended arbitration rivalry over a dispute in Guyana. They’re even rivals within the burgeoning U.S. lithium enterprise. Each stayed centered on fossil fuels and associated low-carbon ventures whereas Europeans BP and Shell struggled to develop inexperienced power. In the meantime, TotalEnergies is the one oil main doubling down on a renewable power focus. —Jordan Blum
This text seems within the August/September 2025 problem of Fortune.
