Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong, center, watches a showrun event at the Hyundai N x Toyota Gazoo Racing Festival in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Oct. 27. To Lee's left is Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun. Yonhap
Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong made Fortune's list of the 100 Most Powerful People in Business, becoming the only Korean entrepreneur included.
Fortune updated its list of the 100 Most Powerful People in Business, including Lee at No. 85.
Fortune described Lee as "Korea's richest person," saying he had been "groomed for power, raised, educated and trained to take over" the business empire from his father, the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee.
The magazine noted that Samsung remains the top memory chipmaker in the world but has “fallen behind rivals” in supplying semiconductors for artificial intelligence (AI) processors, referring to high-bandwidth memory chips.
Fortune added that Samsung's foundry business has “given up ground to rival TSMC,” attributing this to the company's declining stock performance.
The magazine said it selects each candidate for the list among leaders from 40 industries based on its metrics on the size of the business, the financial health of the business, innovation, influence and other criteria.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk topped the list, followed by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Along with them, global big tech firm CEOs made the top 10.
Apple CEO Tim Cook ranked sixth, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was seventh, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman came in eighth and Google CEO Sundar Pichai was 10th.