Who was Mansa Musa, the ‘richest man in history’ – and what would his net worth be now? Today’s billionaires don’t come close to the Mali Empire’s late ruler, who had ‘incomprehensible’ wealth
- Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Gautam Adani may be among today’s richest billionaires, but if we go back in history, John D. Rockefeller and Augustus Caesar are considered richer
- But imagine someone whose wealth, built on gold, salt and land, far exceeded many names you know today – meet Mansa Musa, a 14th century West African ruler
Of course, these are based on the most recent net worth figures, and can fluctuate at any given moment.
Think further back and some more famous names such as American business magnates John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Henry Ford and the Russian Imperial Romanov family also had toppling fortunes.
But what if we were to really go back in time and tell you that the richest person of all time (while factoring in inflation) beat not just today’s tech billionaires and shipping magnates of the industrial era, but also the world’s greatest rulers – Augustus Caesar (US$6 trillion), William the Conqueror (US$5 billion) and Akbar I (incalculable), per The Times of India?
According to historians, the richest person ever to walk the earth was a man named Mansa Musa, a 14th century West African ruler, whose wealth was simply “indescribable” and “incomprehensible”, per the BBC.