2024 Time Person of the Year Odds and Predictions

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Taylor Swift is the freshly minted Time Person of the Year. While she deserves a nod for dominating the headlines in 2023, it’s onto the next one with online betting sites already offering 2024 Time Person of the Year odds.

Swift is unlikely to run it back, seeing as there hasn’t been a back-to-back winner since Richard Nixon in 1972. The next Time Person of the Year winner is open for debate, but we’re six months into the current year, so it isn’t illogical to suggest bettors can make an educated guess.

Whether you want to bet on this market or simply want to predict for fun, let’s have a look at the top candidates. I’ll inspect the latest odds to win the Time Person of the Year, and then break down the top contenders and most appealing sleepers before arriving at a final prediction.

Odds for 2024 Time Person of the Year

The early Time Person of the Year betting odds have this year’s champion nowhere in sight. It’s a good bet to move on from Swift, and right now the favorite to win is YouTube superstar, MrBeast.

Notorious for his wild contests and philanthropy, MrBeast comes in with +320 odds. See how he stacks up against the rest of the competition for 2024:

2024 Time Person of the Year Odds2024 Time Person of the Year Odds
MrBeast +320Donald Trump +400
Artificial Intelligence (AI) +750Volodymyr Zelensky +750
Joe Biden +1000Elon Musk +1000
Sam Altman +1000Nikki Haley +1200
Charles III +1600Xi Jinping +1600
Gavin Newsom +1800Elizabeth Maruma Mrema +2000
Shou Zi Chew +2000Jeff Bezos +2000
Mark Zuckerberg +2500Ismail Haniyeh +2500
Isaac Herzog +2500Joe Rogan +3300
World Health Organization +3300Albert Bouria +3300

Donald Trump comes in second with +400 odds, which suggests the former US President has a good chance at staging the upset. Trump isn’t liked by anyone, but if you take a look at past Time Magazine Person of the Year winners, you’d notice they’re not always revered personalities.

You can win Time Person of the Year for all the wrong reasons. Love him or hate him, though, Trump is undeniably constantly in the news, and as polarizing as it gets.

AI, or Artificial Intelligence, has the third best Time Magazine Person of the Year odds. It’s a bit tough to wrap your head around something that isn’t human, winning a very human reward. However, this is uncharted territory and if we’re being honest, AI’s accomplishments in 2024 alone are pretty amazing.

Look over the rest of the 2024 Time Person of the Year award odds at your own leisure. It’s time for me to dive into my favorite bets, starting with some analysis on the top contenders.

Why is MrBeast Favored to Win?

MrBeast is about as well known as anyone on this list. If you remove politics and only focus on people infatuated with social media – or his 292 million subscribers on YouTube – then it becomes blatantly obvious why he’s the top favorite.

In fact, he broke the record for most subscribers on YouTube in 2024, which is evidence that literally nobody gains more exposure on a regular basis.

But will he actually score the win? MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) isn’t individually as globally popular as someone like Taylor Swift, but he’s still extremely famous and has arguably done a lot more with his notoriety in 2024 than Swift did in 2023.

I could list everything MrBeast has done, but his one recent act of kindness probably summarizes why he’s favored to win the Time Person of the Year award for 2024.

Not only did MrBeast piece together a project that helped 100 people, but his outreach online is obscene. 

When he first posted this video, it got over 11 million views in just five hours. Running through his rolodex of philanthropic videos, the views and good deeds just keep piling up.

In addition, MrBeast raised over $30 million for Team Seas, created a new reality competition with Amazon Prime called Beast Games, and was among Time’s Most Influential People last year.

He was clearly already on Time’s radar, while that seemingly irrelevant reality competition show aims to pay out a $5 million cash prize – the largest ever for a reality TV series.

MrBeast may not be as widely known as Joe Biden or Donald Trump, but it’s hard to argue he’s not a better person – or doing a heck of a lot more that’s positive. MrBeast looks like a great bet, with the only thing holding me back being his middling +325 betting odds.

Top 2024 Time Person of the Year Contenders

The logic behind a MrBeast win is sound, but the Time Person of the Year favorite isn’t always the correct bet. Let’s go over two deserving candidates that look like terrific bets for 2024.

Donald Trump +400

Trump is about as polarizing of a character as you’ll find, and it’s his shenanigans (or lack thereof, depending on what side of the political fence you reside) that make him a solid Time Person of the Year bet.

While he hasn’t actually been running the United States for several years now, Trump has remained in the news due to numerous legal battles. Issues stemming from the January 6th Insurrection, the falsification of business records, fraud allegations, and a sexual assault claims have kept Trump busy in 2024 – and also super relevant in the media.

He was even knee-deep in legal matters recently thanks to a cover-up case involving former adult film star, Stormy Daniels.

Trump is either seen as a martyr or scum, but everyone should be able to agree that he’s certainly a key talking point. Despite his legal battles, Trump remains very much in the race to be elected as the next President of the United States.

Election merit aside, Trump has been a constant source of news reports and online clicks. Love him or hate him, he looks like a very good bet to be named the Time Person of the Year winner for the second time. 

For those who dislike him or think he’s a criminal, don’t write him off due to bias. Even the likes of Hitler and Joseph Stalin have claimed this title before.

Artificial Intelligence +750

Another strong candidate to win the 2024 Time Person of the Year award is AI. The public has heard whispers about the development of Artificial Intelligence for years, but its meteoric rise was made much more obvious over the past year.

AI sped up its development considerably in 2024, as it’s shown almost limitless reach and remarkable accuracy and proficiency across numerous markets.

There has been a massive AI market boom (valued at over $196 billion this year), thanks to incredible advancements in the auto industry, natural language processing, content creation, research assistance, and general automatization.

We’re just scratching the surface, too. There could be much more to come in 2024 alone.

Copyright and licensing obstacles await the world of AI-dependent companies, but for the moment, it’s beyond clear that the integration of AI is only making life (and business) a whole lot easier.

The big question is if a non-human can (or even should) win Time Person of the Year. This is obviously less of an entity and more an idea, but given AI’s already astronomical impact, it’s hard to write it off as a legit threat.

Best 2024 Time Person of the Year Value Bet

When betting on somewhat unpredictable entertainment markets such as this, it does make sense to swing for the fences a bit and chase a more outlandish bet.

In that same breath, I personally still demand some type of reasonable logic to defend any bet I make. You can certainly stick with the main favorite and the other contenders I broke down above, but if you want to aim high, my favorite Time Person of the Year sleeper pick is Elon Musk.

There are absolutely other Time Person of the Year bets to make with far greater odds, but six months into 2024, I don’t see many that make sense. I’ll stop the value hunting at Musk, who is the new owner of Twitter (aka X) and has been in the news routinely in 2024.

He’s even taken it upon himself to try to make X the source of legit news in a world where misinformation is rampant.

Musk isn’t everyone’s favorite high level executive, but you can’t deny that he’s about as relevant as anyone. He has accomplished numerous things so far this year. 

Not only is he officially the richest man in the world and the face of one of the biggest social media companies of all-time, but he’s at the forefront of technology with the controversial Neuralink.

While not without its issues, the company strives to assist disabled people, connecting the human brain to computers. 

Musk’s latest venture has been met with criticism, but also represents a groundbreaking advancement in AI and neuroscience. This could just be scratching the surface of what is possible in the marriage between technology and human reach.

While Musk may not be everyone’s cup of tea politically speaking, he is everywhere, all the time. Whether it’s in the news with Neuralink updates, or posts on X, Musk remains in the mix to win Time Person of the Year for the second time.

2024 Time Person of the Year Prediction

Every candidate in this breakdown feels like a viable bet. Some offer more value than others, but I wouldn’t fault you for betting on any of them.

Of course, some bets feel better than others. My personal favorite is Trump.

You’re still getting reasonable value with Trump, even though he’s not far behind the current 2024 Time Person of the Year betting favorite. MrBeast has undeniably done more this year, but he hasn’t actually been more popular outside of his personal social media platforms.

To be fair, in looking at the six months alone, it was Taylor Swift that blew everyone away in terms of raw search volume. Elon Musk, to his credit, was 9th, too. However, Trump was not far behind (18th most searches in 2024).

Let’s also not forget that Swift has been touring and was prevalent during the end of the NFL season – including the Super Bowl. Those numbers may start to shift toward Trump, which could be one indicator that he’s a real threat to win this thing.

The other key ingredient is Trump is more polarizing than anyone. He’s going to draw way more headlines than MrBeast, and while he’s not creating viral content (intentionally, anyways) at the same rate, he still has major pull on social media with over 87 million followers on X.

Trump’s name recognition and overall brand will continue to thrive as he gears up for the US Presidential race, which means if he’s truly behind MrBeast right now, he can easily cover that ground over the next six months.

Bet: Donald Trump +400

Recent Time Person of the Year Winners

Last 10 Time Person of the Year Winners
2023 – Taylor Swift
2022 – The Spirit of Ukraine/Vokodymyr Zelensky
2021 – Elon Musk
2020 – Joe Biden/Kamala Harris
2019 – Greta Thunberg
2018 – The Guardians
2017 – The Silence Breakers
2016 – Donald Trump
2015 – Angela Merkel
2014 – Ebola Fighters