Billionaires replace immigrant workers in TIME's Person of the Year cover

TIME magazine’s 2025 Person of the Year announcement was supposed to celebrate a technological milestone. Instead, it ignited one of the year’s fiercest cultural debates. On 11 December, TIME unveiled “The Architects of AI”, a collective honour for the executives who, in the magazine’s words, “delivered the age of thinking machines” and transformed the year into one where AI’s potential came sharply into view. But it was the cover art, a recreation of the iconic 1932 Lunch Atop a Skyscraper photograph that replaced the original immigrant construction workers with ultra wealthy tech leaders, that set the internet ablaze. Digital artist Jason Seiler’s illustration shows eight AI titans perched on a steel beam high above a foggy cyberpunk skyline. Among them are Elon Musk , Sam Altman