The Most Dangerous People on the Internet in 2025

Topping the list—as we predicted he would last year—is Donald Trump. The 79-year-old president of the United States quite literally rules by decrees posted to his social network, Truth Social. The US government, meanwhile, is run by a ramshackle crew of former conspiracy theory podcasters, TV hosts, vaccine skeptics, and entertainment moguls. A decade ago, the prevailing advice was to never read the YouTube comments. Today, the human embodiment of YouTube comments are setting federal policy.

Beyond members of the Trump administration (fair warning, there are quite a few on this year’s list), you’ll find some of the usual suspects: China’s state-backed hackers, chaos-making members of “the com” internet underworld, prolific online scammers, and of course, Elon Musk.

Each year, we round up the people who have an outsized role in making the internet era feel like life itself is a relentless, unavoidable comments section ...