Donald Trump named TIME’s 2024 Person of the Year, to ring New York Stock Exchange bell

Donald Trump, the former US president and president-elect, has been named TIME magazine’s 2024 Person of the Year, the publication announced Thursday. Announcing the choice on NBC’s Today show, TIME’s editor-in-chief, Sam Jacobs, said Trump was someone who “for better or for worse, had the most influence on the news in 2024.”

It is the second time when Trump has been recognised as 'Person of the Year' by TIME magazine, the first being in 2016 following his presidential election victory.

The recognition comes during a transformative period for Trump, who, six months ago, became the first former US president convicted of a crime. Since then, he has not only secured a decisive victory in the November election but also reasserted himself as a dominant figure in American and global politics.

Referring to the end of his chaotic first term and the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Jacobs said, "If that moment marked Trump’s nadir, today we are witnessing his apotheosis. On the cusp of his second presidency, all of us—from his most fanatical supporters to his most fervent critics—are living in the Age of Trump."

"For marshaling a comeback of historic proportions, for driving a once-in-a-­generation political realignment, for reshaping the American presidency and altering America’s role in the world, Donald Trump is TIME’s 2024 ­Person of the Year," he wrote.

Trump is expected to mark the occasion Thursday by ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, just blocks away from the Manhattan courtroom where his legal troubles unfolded earlier this year.

Other finalists for the title included Vice President Kamala Harris, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, tech mogul Elon Musk, and Britain’s Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton.