MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga among Fortune’s top 50 people in business

A returnee to the list,53-year-old Banga is ranked 15th.

Fortune said the move to cashless and mobile transactions is benefiting Banga’s credit card company and some think the stock,now at USD 735 a share,could reach USD 1,000.

Bhusri,47,and his cloud-based financials and human resources software company Workday’s co-founders and co-CEO Dave Duffield come in on the 37th spot.

Workday sales were way up in 2013,and the stock outperformed rival Oracle.

Topping Fortune’s list to be crowned the Business Person of the Year 2013 is Musk,who is a “triple threat” having disrupted aeronautics with Space Exploration Technologies known as SpaceX,shaken up the auto business with Tesla Motors and retooled the energy sector with SolarCity,in which Musk is chairman and largest shareholder.

Under Musk,42,Tesla has emerged to become the world’s most prominent maker of all-electric cars with revenues up more than 12-fold for the first three quarters of the year. The company is on track to top USD 2 billion in sales in 2013.

Musk’s creations have already made him tremendously wealthy,with his fortune pegged at USD 7.7 billion “but it is his audacity and tenacity that make him Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year.”

Online retail giant Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is ranked 6th as he defied expectations again this year,sacrificing company profits nearly two decades after founding Amazon to chase new markets.

The Seattle-based company ploughed ahead with its same-day grocery-delivery efforts and partnered with the ailing US Postal Service to allow Sunday delivery in some US cities.

Fortune said Bezos’s boldest move was buying the Washington Post for USD 250 million with his personal venture fund. Still,his eclectic strategy has paid off in the past,and Wall Street remains as bullish as ever on the stock.

Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page is ranked 8th.

Google’s shares passed the USD 1,000 mark this year,pushing the internet search giant’s value ahead of Microsoft and behind only Apple and Exxon among US companies.

“As if making sure Google stays No 1 in search,ads,mobile,online video,maps,browsers,and more was not enough,Page has launched Google’s latest zany venture: an anti-ageing startup named Calico,” Fortune said.

Among Fortune’s runners-up is Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway,Warren Buffett,who sits on more than USD 40 billion in cash,thanks in part to his gutsy investments in companies like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America when others panicked during the 2008 financial crisis.

“As Buffett’s pile of cash grows,it’s ever more likely that Berkshire will make another big acquisition. The Oracle of Omaha hit another milestone this year. In May he joined Twitter and already has over 700,000 followers,” Fortune said.

The list also includes Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda,Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg,Japan-based telecom and Internet behemoth Softbank’s Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son,Twitter CEO Dick Costolo,Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally,Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim and Apple’s Cook.

Fortune also came out with an exhaustive cataloguing of the top people,places,products,profits,movies, books,beverages,turnarounds,albums,robots,revolutions,quotes and even babies.

Amazon’s Bezos was named the Best New Owner after he bought the Washington Post newspaper while online media streaming company Netflix was the Best Turnaround in 2013.

The ‘Best Robot’ title went to the drone,the new way “we wage war”.

Among the other bests of 2013 was Harvard as the best business school,Bangkok as the best city with the maximum visitors,best new currency Bitcoin,best hiring spree Amazon,which added 21,400 employees in 2013 bringing the total headcount to 109,800,an increase in staff of more than 400 per cent over the past five years.

Best book was “Lean In” by Fortune COO Sheryl Sandberg that sold more than a million copies in 17 languages.

Britain’s new king-in-waiting Prince George,Prince William and Kate Middleton’s son,was named the ‘Best Baby’.