He is undoubtedly one of the personalities of the year. The most divisive of billionaires, Elon Musk, has just broken a new record. According to the Bloomberg index, he has just won the title of the richest man of all timesurpassing John Rockefeller, the oil and energy magnate (founder of Standard Oil).
If the two businessmen were not contemporaries, Rockefeller died in 1937, they would have had the same fortune at the height of their careers. Indeed, the Bloomberg index reports that the boss of Standard Oil held a billion dollars at the beginning of the 20th century, in 2024 this would be equivalent to 336 billion dollars.
But Elon Musk has just surpassed him. According to the latest ranking, the boss of Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink would hold a personal fortune of $348 billion. With that much money, he would be the richest businessman of all time.
Elon Musk, unstoppable?
In addition to this colossal fortune, which has only been growing for years, Elon Musk has gained power in recent weeks. With the recent US election and Donald Trump's victory, Musk became a minister.
The new tenant of the White House has built a tailor-made role for him, to reduce the public deficit. Position that Elon Musk intends to occupy despite the risks of obvious conflicts of interest with his positions as CEO in several companies.
According to the media Forbes, these new ministerial responsibilities have not negatively impacted Elon Musk's companies, quite the contrary. In the hours following Donald Trump's victory, Tesla shares increased by 15%, a speculation all the more astonishing since the Republican politician has already displayed his love for fossil fuels and good old thermal cars.
Whatever the case, the surge in Tesla's share price had a direct consequence on Elon Musk's portfolio, the latter growing by nearly 24 billion dollars in a single day. Since October 23, the stock has gone from $212 to more than $350 at the time of writing.
The richest of all time?
If the Bloomberg index makes Elon Musk the “richest man of all time”, this name is actually misleading. It only takes into account business leaders since the start of the industrial revolution. However, long before them, other people already held considerable fortunes.
The best known (but also the richest) was the king of Mali Mansa Moussa. Living in the 14th century, he controlled half of the world's gold production. His wealth was such that when he undertook his pilgrimage to Mecca (with a court of 60,000 people), he had a new mosque built every Friday. In total, around a hundred places of worship were created between 1324 and 1325.
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