''The Superclass List'' is a creation of David Rothkopf which his book '' Superclass: The Global Power Elite and The World They Are Making'' (published March 2008) is based upon. There are four key elements of success that unite the members of the Superclass, and gives them unparalleled power over world affairs. These elements are: ''geography'', ''pedigree'', ''networking'' and ''luck''.

The verified list

In the book Rothkopf writes that his list from 2008 contains 6,000 individuals. The grouping is, however, only defined roughly and as a statistical reality. Rothkopf also writes that list (one in a million, globally), is always in flux. (Note, world population is now 6.9 – 7 billion. so, if published today, the list may contain 7,000 names.) Rothkopf states that his list is not to be shown in public as there will be so much discussion about who does or does not qualify to be on the list. In interviews he mentions individuals that are on the list. This list contain names that he argues he has verified.

Australia

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

Belgium

Albert Frère Albert, Baron Frère (4 February 1926 – 3 December 2018) was a Belgian billionaire businessman. Early life Frère grew up as a son of a nail merchant and helped in the business since an early age. His father died when Frère was 17; Frère h ...

Étienne Davignon Étienne, Count Davignon (born 4 October 1932 in Budapest, Hungary) is a Belgian politician, businessman, and former vice-president of the European Commission. Career After receiving a Doctorate of Law from the Catholic University of Louvai ...

# Maurice Lippens

Brazil

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (; born Luiz Inácio da Silva; 27 October 1945), known mononymously as Lula, is a Brazilian politician, trade unionist, and former metalworker who is the president-elect of Brazil. A member of the Workers' Party ...

Chile

# Andronico Luksic

China

# Hu Jintao # Fu Chengyu #

Ding Lei Ding Lei (; born 1 October 1971), also known as William Ding, is a Chinese billionaire businessman, and the founder and CEO of NetEase (163.com). Ding made significant contributions to the development of computer networks in mainland China. In ...

Lou Jiwei Lou Jiwei (; born December 1950), is a Chinese politician, and current director of the 13th CPPCC Foreign Affairs Committee. Lou was Chairman of China's National Council for Social Security Fund, Minister for Finance, Chairman of China Investme ...

Yang Huiyan Yang Huiyan (; born 1981) is a Chinese-born Cypriot billionaire businesswoman and property developer. She is the majority shareholder of Country Garden Holdings, a stake largely transferred to her by her father Yang Guoqiang in 2007. She was pr ...

Zhou Xiaochuan Zhou Xiaochuan () (born 29 January 1948) is a retired Chinese economist, banker, reformist and bureaucrat. Zhou served as the Governor of the People's Bank of China from 2002 to 2018. In 2001, his policies led to a stock crash, forcing him to re ...

# Richard Li Tzar Kai

Colombia

# Luis Alberto Moreno #

Shakira Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll ( , ; born 2 February 1977), professionally known by the mononym Shakira, is a Colombian singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Barranquilla, she has been referred to as the " Queen of Latin Music" and is n ...

Julio Mario Santo Domingo Julio Mario Santo Domingo Pumarejo (October 16, 1923 – October 7, 2011) was a Colombian-American billionaire businessman, diplomat and patriarch of the Santo Domingo family who lived in New York City. He controlled more than 100 companies in ...

Egypt

Amr Khaled Amr Mohamed Helmi Khaled ( ar, عمرو محمد حلمي خالد; born: 5 September 1967) is an Egyptian Muslim activist and television preacher. ''The New York Times Magazine'', in reference to Khaled's popularity in English-speaking coun ...

Amr Moussa Amr Moussa ( ar, عمرو موسى, , Amr Muhammad Moussa; born 3 October 1936) is an Egyptian politician and diplomat who was the Secretary-General of the Arab League, a 22-member forum representing Arab states, from 1 June 2001 to 1 July 201 ...

Denmark

Janus Friis Janus Friis (; born 26 June 1976) is a Danish entrepreneur best known for co-founding the file-sharing application Kazaa, and the peer-to-peer telephony application Skype. In September 2005, he and his business partner Niklas Zennström sol ...

France

# Nicolas Sarkozy #

Pascal Lamy Pascal Lamy (born 8 April 1947) is a French political consultant and businessman. He was the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) from 1 September 2005 to 1 September 2013 for 8 years. In April 2009, WTO members reappointed La ...

Michèle Alliot-Marie Michèle Yvette Marie-Thérèse Jeanne Honorine Alliot-Marie (; born 10 September 1946), known in France as MAM, is a French politician and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from France. She is a member of the Republicans, part of the Eu ...

# Baudouin Prot #

Jean-Claude Trichet Jean-Claude Trichet (; born 20 December 1942) is a French economist who served as President of the European Central Bank from 2003 to 2011. Previous to his assumption of the presidency he served as Governor of the Bank of France from 1993 to 2003 ...

Germany

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Opp ...

Josef Ackermann Josef Meinrad Ackermann (born 7 February 1948) is a Swiss banker, former Chairman of the Bank of Cyprus, and former chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank. He has also been a member of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, th ...

Josef Joffe Josef Joffe (born 15 March 1944) is a former publisher-editor of '' Die Zeit'', a weekly German newspaper. His second career has been in academia. Appointed Senior Fellow of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in 2007 (a ...

# Rene Obermann #

Reinhard Mohn Reinhard Mohn (29 June 1921 – 3 October 2009) was a German billionaire businessman and philanthropist. Under his leadership, Bertelsmann, once a medium-sized printing and publishing house, established in 1835, developed into a global media co ...

India

Lakshmi Mittal Lakshmi Niwas Mittal (; born 15 June 1950) is an Indian steel magnate, based in the United Kingdom. He is the Executive Chairman of ArcelorMittal, the world's second largest steelmaking company, as well as Chairman of stainless steel manufacture ...

# Sonia Gandhi #

Ratan Tata Ratan Naval Tata, GBE (born 28 December 1937) is an Indian industrialist and former chairman of Tata Sons. He was also the chairman of the Tata Group from 1990 to 2012, serving also as interim chairman from October 2016 through February 2017 ...

Kalanidhi Maran Kalanithi Murasoli Maran is an Indian billionaire media mogul who is the chairman and founder of the Sun Group. He owns television channels, newspapers, weeklies, FM radio stations, DTH services, a cricket team (Sunrisers Hyderabad), and a mov ...

# Rana Talwar #

Kushal Pal Singh Kushal Pal Singh (born 15 November 1931) is an Indian billionaire real estate developer, and the chairman and CEO of real estate developer DLF Limited, founded by his father-in-law Chaudhary Raghvender Singh. DLF has an estimated land bank of ...

# Mukesh Ambani #

Indra Nooyi Indra Nooyi (née Krishnamurthy; born October 28, 1955) is an Indian-American business executive and former chief executive officer and chairperson of PepsiCo. She has consistently ranked among the world's 100 most powerful women. In 2014, sh ...

Tenzin Gyatso The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...

Iran

# Shah Reza Pahlavi

Ireland

# Bob Geldof

Italy

Silvio Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies f ...

Netherlands

Jeroen van der Veer Jeroen van der Veer (born 27 October 1947) is a Dutch businessman. He is the chairman of Philips, and a former chief executive officer (CEO) of Royal Dutch Shell. Education Van der Veer graduated in 1971 from the Delft University of Technology ...

Japan

Hiroshi Mikitani (born March 11, 1965) is a Japanese billionaire businessman and writer. He is the founder and CEO of Rakuten, Inc. He is also the president of Crimson Group, chairman of the football club Vissel Kobe, chairman of Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, ...

# Osamu Suzuki # Akira Mori

Kenya

Wangari Maathai Wangarĩ Muta Maathai (; 1 April 1940 – 25 September 2011) was a Kenyan social, environmental and a political activist and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. As a beneficiary of the Kennedy Airlift, she studied in the Un ...

Kuwait

Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah ( ar, الشيخ صباح الأحمد الجابر الصباح, translit=ash-Shaykh Sabāh al-ʾAḥmad al-Jābir aṣ-Ṣabāḥ; 16 June 192929 September 2020) was the Emir of Kuwait and Commander of the Kuwai ...

Lebanon

# Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah

Liberia

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (born Ellen Eugenia Johnson, 29 October 1938) is a Liberian politician who served as the 24th president of Liberia from 2006 to 2018. Sirleaf was the first elected female head of state in Africa. Sirleaf was born in Monro ...

South Africa

Patrice Motsepe Patrice Tlhopane Motsepe (born 28 January 1962) is a South African mining billionaire businessman. Since 12 March 2021, he has been serving as the President of the Confederation of African Football. He is the founder and executive chairman of ...

Mexico

Mario Molina Mario José Molina-Pasquel Henríquez (19 March 19437 October 2020), known as Mario Molina, was a Mexican chemist. He played a pivotal role in the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, and was a co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemis ...

# Genaro Larrea Mota Velasco # Guillermo Ortiz Martinez #

Carlos Slim Helú Carlos Slim Helú (; born 28 January 1940) is a Mexican business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. From 2010 to 2013, Slim was ranked as the richest person in the world by the ''Forbes'' business magazine. He derived his fortune from hi ...

# Joaquín Guzman

Nigeria

Aliko Dangote ''For people with the given name, see Aliko (given name).'' Aliko ( sq-definite, Alikoi; ) is a village and a former commune in Vlorë County, southern Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became a subdivision of the municipality Fini ...

# Odein Ajumogobia #

Francis Arinze Francis Arinze (born 1 November 1932) is a Nigerian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from 2002 to 2008 and before that led the Secretariat for Non-Christ ...

North Korea

# Kim Jong-Un ''

Qatar

# Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer al-Thani

Russia

# Alexei Miller #

Vladimir Popovkin Vladimir Aleksandrovich Popovkin (russian: Владимир Александрович Поповкин; 25 September 1957 – 18 June 2014) was the General Director of the Russian Federal Space Agency and former First Deputy Defense Minister of R ...

# Andrey Likhachev # Oleg Deripaska # SERgEY BABENKOV

Saudi Arabia

Bandar bin Sultan Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud (born 2 March 1949) is a retired Saudi Arabian diplomat, military officer, and government official who served as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States from 1983 to 2005. He is a member of the House of Saud. Fro ...

Al-Waleed bin Talal Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud ( ar, الوليد بن طلال آل سعود; born 7 March 1955) is a Saudi Arabian billionaire businessman, investor, philanthropist and royal. He was listed on ''Time'' magazine's Time 100, an annual list of the hu ...

Singapore

Ho Ching Ho Ching (; born 27 March 1953) is a Singaporean businesswoman who has been serving as the director of Temasek Trust since 2021. She is the wife of incumbent Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Ho joined Temasek Holdings as a director in January ...

South Africa

# Nelson Mandela ''(deceased 2013)'' #

Anton Rupert Nicky Oppenheimer Douw Steyn

South Korea

David Yonggi Cho David Yonggi Cho (14 February 1936 – 14 September 2021 as Paul Yungi Cho) was a South Korean Christian minister. With his mother-in-law Choi Ja-shil, he was a cofounder of the Yoido Full Gospel Church (Assemblies of God), the world's largest ...

# Frankie Washing Board

Portugal

# José Manuel Barroso

Sweden

Carl Bildt Nils Daniel Carl Bildt (born 15 July 1949) is a Swedish politician and diplomat who was Prime Minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994. He was the leader of the Moderate Party from 1986 to 1999. Bildt served as Sweden's Minister for Foreign Affair ...

# Marcus Wallenberg #

Ingvar Kamprad Feodor Ingvar Kamprad (; 30 March 1926 – 27 January 2018) was a Swedish billionaire best known for founding IKEA, a multinational retail company specialising in furniture. He lived in Switzerland from 1976 to 2014. Early life and family ...

Fredrik Reinfeldt John Fredrik Reinfeldt (pronounced ; born 4 August 1965) is a Swedish economist, lecturer, and former politician who was Prime Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014, and chairman of the liberal conservative Moderate Party from 2003 to 2015. He ...

Carl-Henric Svanberg Carl-Henric Svanberg (born 29 May 1952), is a Swedish businessman and current Chairman of Volvo. He was Chairman of BP for eight years, from 2010 to 2018. Life and career Svanberg holds a master's degree in applied physics from the Linköping ...

''About 20–30 Swedes are on the list''.

Switzerland

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe Peter Brabeck-Letmathe (born 13 November 1944) is an Austrian businessman. He is the chairman emeritus, former chairman and CEO of the Nestlé Group, and former chairman of Formula One. Early life Brabeck-Letmathe was born in Villach, Austria, i ...

Turkey

Kemal Derviş Kemal Derviş (; born 10 January 1949) is a Turkish economist and politician, and former head of the United Nations Development Programme. He was honored by the government of Japan for having "contributed to mainstreaming Japan's development ass ...

United Arab Emirates

# Khalifa Mohammad Al-Kindi

United Kingdom

Mike Turner Michael Ray Turner (born January 11, 1960) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for since 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party. Turner's district, numbered as the 3rd district from 2003 to 2013, is based in Dayt ...

# Richard Branson # Bernie Ecclestone #

John Silvester Varley John Silvester Varley (born 1 April 1956) is an English banker who was the group chief executive of Barclays from 2004 to 2011. Early life John Silvester Varley was born in Warwick. His father, Philip, was a solicitor in Coventry. Varley was e ...

# Mark Thompson #Stacy Shannon

United States

http://www.newsweek.com/id/130932/output/print , title= Who Is the Superclass? , last= Rothkopf , first= David , author-link= David Rothkopf , date= 2008-04-07 , accessdate= 2008-09-24 #

Robert Zoellick Robert Bruce Zoellick (; ; born July 25, 1953) is an American public official and lawyer who was the eleventh president of the World Bank, a position he held from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2012. He was previously a managing director of Goldman Sach ...

# Oprah Winfrey #

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic no ...

# Lee Scott #

Michael Mullen Michael Glenn Mullen (born October 4, 1946) is a retired United States Navy admiral, who served as the 17th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1, 2007, to September 30, 2011. Mullen previously served as the Navy's 28th chief of ...

# Mark Zuckerberg # Pierre Omidyar # Steve Case #

Sumner Redstone Sumner Murray Redstone ( Rothstein; May 27, 1923 – August 11, 2020) was an American billionaire businessman and media magnate. He was the founder and chairman of the second incarnation of Viacom which was dissolved in 2019 (a year before Redst ...

# Michael Bloomberg #

Rex Tillerson Rex Wayne Tillerson (born March 23, 1952) is an American engineer and energy executive who served as the 69th U.S. secretary of state from February 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, under President Donald Trump. Prior to joining the Trump administ ...

# Ben Bernanke # Ken Lewis # Stephen Green (banker) #

Lloyd Blankfein Lloyd Craig Blankfein (born September 20, 1954) is an American investment banker who has served as senior chairman of Goldman Sachs since 2019, and chairman and chief executive from 2006 until the end of 2018. Previous to leading Goldman Sachs, ...

Sergey Brin Sergey Mikhailovich Brin (russian: link=no, Сергей Михайлович Брин; born August 21, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist, and internet entrepreneur, who co-founded Google with Larry Page. Brin was th ...

Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 unti ...

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

Warren Buffett Warren Edward Buffett ( ; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net ...

# Jerry Yang # Henry "Hank" Paulson #

Joshua Bolten Joshua Brewster Bolten (born August 16, 1954) is an American lawyer and politician. Bolten served as the White House Chief of Staff to U.S. President George W. Bush, replacing Andrew Card on April 14, 2006. Previously, he served as the Directo ...

Vatican

Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the soverei ...

Venezuela

# Lorenzo Mendoza Gimenez #

Gustavo Cisneros Gustavo Alfredo Jiménez de Cisneros Rendiles (born 1 June 1945) is a Venezuelan businessman and Chairman of ''Grupo Cisneros''. Early life and education Cisneros is the son of Diego Cisneros and Albertina Cisneros (née Rendíles Martínez). ...

References

External links

About the Superclass
''

Global Politician ''Global Politician'' was an online magazine of politics that published analysis of current events, as well as interviews with politicians, government officials, diplomats, book authors and terrorists. It was founded in October 2004 and is based ...

''.
Who is the Superclass?
''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Superclass List Political science terminology Social classes Social groups