At an estimated US$240 billion, Elon Musk’s status as the world’s wealthiest person is dwarfed by a historic individual
Elon Musk currently enjoys the title of the world’s richest living man, but historians would say he hasn’t even cracked the top five wealthiest individuals of all time.
SpaceX CEO Musk has owned some of the world’s most popular companies. In addition to the spacecraft manufacturer, he’s also got his hands in Tesla, Neuralink, and more recently, Twitter.
At an estimated $242 billion (£190bn), he’s also recognized as the world’s current richest man alive according to the Bloomberg billionaire list – even after the unveiling of the Tesla Cybercab reportedly caused him to lose $15bn.
Despite this, Musk’s wealth doesn’t even crack the top five richest people of all time. As Jacob Davidson wrote for Money.com in 2015, the title of the richest man of all time (when adjusted for inflation) actually belongs to Mansa Musa, a Malian ruler who lived between 1280 and 1337.
Musa, who reigned as king of Mali from 1312 until his death, is described by Davidson as ‘richer than anyone could describe’. However, Celebrity Net Worth estimates his actual wealth to be somewhere along the lines of $400bn (£307bn) – meaning Musk is a whopping $158 billion short of matching him.
Musa’s incredible wealth can be attributed to the output of gold Mali produced and traded during his reign. By the end of the 14th century, Mali was responsible for over two-thirds of all gold in Europe.
He was so rich that he could afford to part with a lot of his gold stockpiles to the poor he met on his travels.
During a pilgrimage to Mecca around 1325, Musa stopped in Cairo for a month with 60,000 men and 12,000 slaves accompanying him. Each individual carried around four pounds of gold bars, making for a total of 288,000 pounds of gold being brought into Cairo’s economy.
In today’s equivalent, this would be worth around $6.4bn being split among everyone. But when everyone is rich, no-one is rich, and it was this very action that devalued the metal and caused Musa to have to trade some of it back.
Musa continued to reign until his death, which is commonly agreed by historians to have occurred in 1337.
Other wealthy figures who appear on the list of richest humans of all time include Augustus Caesar with $4.6tn (£3.5tn), John D Rockefeller with $341bn (£239bn), and William The Conqueror with $229bn (£176bn).
As of today (October 17) Musk’s wealth is estimated at $242bn, officially placing him around 7th on the list of richest humans who ever lived. It’s not quite first, but it’s still not a bad spot to be in, I suppose!
