Donald Trump has been named as Time magazine's Person of the Year for a second time, one month before he is sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.
In Time's announcement, editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs said: "For 97 years, the editors of TIME have been picking the Person of the Year: the individual who, for better or for worse, did the most to shape the world and the headlines over the past 12 months. In many years, that choice is a difficult one. In 2024, it was not."
"This is a tremendous honour," Trump said on Wall Street on Thursday, before being invited to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
"I have to say Time magazine getting this honour for the second time, I think I like it better this time, actually.
"I do want to thank Time magazine, I've been on the cover many times. I don't know who has the record … It's been an honour and every time it's an honour."
The president-elect was previously named as the magazine's Person of the Year in 2016 when he was first elected to the White House.
He also has a long history of fascination with Time — particularly when it's highlighting his achievements and big moments for its 26 million readers including at least 227,000 in Australia.
Trump's most notable moments in 2024
Among the defining images of 2024 were the scenes of chaos after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July.
Vision of the moment Trump stopped talking onstage at the rally to grab his right ear as popping sounds rang out and Secret Service agents rushed to cover him from further gunfire rebounded around the globe and went viral online.
An image taken amidst Trump's evacuation by Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci was later featured on the front pages and websites of major news outlets around the world.
The incident came just months after another historic occurrence for the United States and Trump — when he was found guilty in a New York court of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree to conceal a payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election campaign.
That verdict in May saw Trump become the first American president to become a convicted felon in the nation's history. He is yet to be sentenced for those crimes.
Photographs and illustrations from inside the courtroom were broadcast widely during the six-week trial, which the president-elect dismissed at the time as a political witch-hunt.
By November, Trump had solidified his return to the Oval Office by winning the US presidential election with strong leads in all of America's widely-watched swing states.
The president-elected lauded the campaign as "a victory like probably no other" and pledged to make America "bigger, better, bolder" in his second term in the White House.
After being sworn into office in January, Trump will become the second person in American history to serve non-consecutive terms as president.
With the eyes of the world on him, Trump once again had locked in his position on the front cover of one of the most recognisable magazine releases.
35-year history with Time magazine
The president-elect has always shown a fascination with Time magazine.
[tweet]He landed his first cover on January 16, 1989. The headline of the magazine read:
"This man may turn you green with envy — or just turn you off. Flaunting it is his game, and Trump is his name."
Since then, he has been on the cover of the magazine a total of 40 times. 35 of those were before his first stint as president ended, five more since.
In 2017 he claimed to have "the all-time record in the history of Time Magazine".
That is not true.
Former US president Richard Nixon has the most covers with 55. Taylor Swift was the most recent Person of the Year.
Speaking to the magazine in 1989 for his maiden cover, Trump said "who has done as much as I have?"
That was before he had been on the cover 40 times, went through two divorces and two new marriages, competed in three presidential campaigns (two victorious), served a presidential term, became a convicted felon, survived an assassination attempt, and hosted 14 seasons of The Apprentice.
Plenty to unpack there, and plenty more not listed, but safe to say he has maintained a busy life since 1989.
In that same interview in 1989 he was asked had he ever thought about psychotherapy?
"No. I don't have time to think about my problems," he said.
Fake covers on display
To really ram home his deep infatuation with Time magazine, let's not forget in 2017 when fake covers were seen hanging in at least five of the then president's US golf clubs.
A photoshopped image of Trump appeared alongside a headline claiming the Apprentice is a "television smash" in the fake cover.
It was uncovered by a Washington Post reporter as he was visiting one of Trump's properties.
"I can confirm that this is not a real TIME cover," a spokeswoman for Time Inc said.
The company also asked the Trump organisation to remove the cover from display.
'Stunt of a magazine'
Winding the clock back a little from the fake cover incident, Trump revealed he kept a close eye on the Time magazine Person of the Year gong.
When Pope Francis won in 2013, Trump said it was "a joke and stunt of a magazine that will, like Newsweek, soon be dead. Bad list!"
Trump wasn't even nominated in 2013 by the way.
However when he was awarded his first Person of the Year honour, in 2016, he said "it means a lot".
"Especially me growing up reading Time magazine and, you know, it's a very important magazine," he said.
