10 richest people who ever lived – net worths, ranked: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos don’t come close to Genghis Khan, oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller or ‘trillionaires’ Catherine the Great and Joseph Stalin
- The likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Gautam Adani may be worth billions, but their riches pale in comparison to the entrepreneurs, emperors and rulers of days past
- Russia’s Catherine the Great and Joseph Stalin sat atop trillions, Mali’s Mansa Musa had insane amounts of gold, and Genghis Khan founded the world’s biggest empire – so who’s on top?
Forbes estimates the serial tech entrepreneur’s fortune at be about US$220 billion, thanks to his portfolio of companies including electric car manufacturer Tesla, rocket producer SpaceX and tunnelling project The Boring Company.
It is however important to note that the further we go back in time, the harder it is to put an accurate or fair figure on how relatively rich an individual was as, well, times were much different back then. Wealth was based on gold, land, salt and power – and not all academics agree on the valuations.
But we’ve done our best stocktaking, and according to several sources, and the work of a number of historians, these are richest people to ever walk the earth – after factoring in inflation and the worth of commodities in the day – in 2022 dollars.
10. John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937)
Estimated net worth today: US$340 billion
