Throughout time, there have been people who are pretty rich, people who are fucking rich, and people who are WTF-I-CAN’T-EVEN rich. To get an idea of how much money people have had over the years, Celebrity Net Worth did a little research a while ago and pretty much figured out the richest person in history. Before we get to the big reveal however, it’s important to know a couple of facts about their study.
Firstly, all the numbers were adjusted for inflation, meaning $100 million in 1913 would be equal to $2.299.63 billion in 2013.
And Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon is the richest man in the world, with a net worth of $150 billion.
Having said that, the richest human being in the history of the world was Mansa Musa I of Mali, who was worth a staggering $400 billion.
Mansa Musa was an emperor of the wealthy West African Mali Empire and reigned between 1312–37. The Malian Empire covered modern day Ghana, Timbuktu and Mali and Mansa Musa’s massive wealth came from his country’s vast production of more than half the world’s supply of salt and gold. A devout Muslim, he built a huge number of mosques in his lifetime, and was most famous for his legendary pilgrimage to Mecca. The journey involved 60,000 carrying vast consignments of gold.
In fact, the amount of gold he gave away to the poor in Cairo and Medina is said to have put their economy in complete disarray, as it messed up their inflation rate!
Musa held more than a dozen titles, including Emir of Melle, Lord of the Mines of Wangara and Conqueror of Ghanata. During the time of his reign, a lot of Europe was in the midst of civil war and famine, but several African kingdoms were thriving. It was this excess of gold that Musa used to feed and finance his 60,000 man strong procession, which included 80 camels carrying 300 pounds of gold dust each. He also expanded the borders of his empire to a great extent. It stretched around 2000 miles.
His procession was so massive it was literally included in a map. Namely, the1375 Catalan Atlas.
Apart from building mosques, he also built schools, universities and learning centres in the places he annexed, such as Timbuktu, urbanising the place in the process. Everywhere he travelled he is known to have built mosques however, with conjecture claiming he built one almost every Friday of the week. Towards the end of his reign, his sons followed suit, but could not hold on to the wealth he had accumulated.
The death date of Mansa Musa is highly debated, but it is known that he ruled for 25 years, making a great, almost mystical name for himself in the process. People who witnessed him and his procession were said to be in complete awe of his wealth, so it’s fitting to say that he was probably the richest human being of all time. Here’s a video by Ted-Ed that further explains his journey!