Who is the richest person in the history of the world?
Wealth adjusted for inflation.
Data Scavenger Hunt
Find answers to the following questions using the visual above:
Mansa Musa lived from 1312 C.E. to 1337 C.E. How much was he worth in today’s money?
Mansa Musa was the ruler of the kingdom of Mali on the continent of Africa. According to Forbes Magazine, Elon Musk is currently worth $269.3 billion. How much more was Mansa Musa worth than Elon Musk?
Where would Elon Musk’s current wealth place him on the list of the all-time wealthiest person ever?
List all the people from the visual above that you had previously heard of (be honest).
Label each person on the list as either an industrialist, financier, or political leader.
Big Brain Questions
Answer these questions by yourself using your brain and the links below:
The third, fourth, Ninth, and tenth richest people in the history of the world were Americans. Why do you think that is?
Under the rule of Mansa Musa, the kingdom of Mali grew significantly. His kingdom stretched for about 2,000 miles, from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to modern-day Niger, taking in parts of what are now Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Ivory Coast. With such a large land mass came great resources such as gold and salt. During the reign of Mansa Musa, the empire of Mali accounted for almost half of the Old World's gold, according to the British Museum. And all of it belonged to the king. All of the political leaders as shown above were kings, emperors, or tyrants. Explain why there are no democratically elected leaders on the list above.
In 1324 C.E., Mansa Musa, a devout Muslim, decided to go on a pilgrimage (Hajj) to Mecca, passing through the Sahara Desert and Egypt. The king reportedly left Mali with a caravan of 60,000 men. He took his entire royal court and officials, soldiers, griots (entertainers), merchants, camel drivers and 12,000 slaves, as well as a long train of goats and sheep for food. It was a city moving through the desert. A hundred camels were in tow, each camel carrying hundreds of pounds of pure gold. So lavishly did Musa hand out gold in Cairo that his three-month stay caused the price of gold to plummet in the region for 10 years, wrecking the economy. US-based technology company SmartAsset.com estimates that due to the depreciation of gold, Mansa Musa's pilgrimage led to about $1.5 billion of economic losses across the Middle East. How could so much gold (or any kind of money) be bad for an economy?
In addition to his riches, Mansa Musa was known for encouraging the arts and architecture, funding literature and building schools, libraries and mosques. Timbuktu (Mali’s capital) soon became a center of education and people traveled from around the world to study there. The rich king is often credited with starting the tradition of education in West Africa, although the story of his empire largely remains little known outside West Africa. I was a history major at a highly regarded U.S. University. I had never heard of Mansa Musa until my senior year of college when I took an African history course. Why do you think so little was known about a major world figure like Mansa Musa?
Explain whether you think that anyone will ever out-rich Mansa Musa.
Write and Discuss
Take ten minutes to write about the question at the top of the page and then discuss with your classmates.
Act on your Learning
Billionaires in the US pay a tiny proportion of the wealth they accrue in taxes compared to the cut ordinary Americans pay from their wages. President Biden’s budget for fiscal year 2024 contains major tax hikes on billionaires, aiming to reduce the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade. What do you think about this? Call the White House at 202-456-1414, or send an email.
Get Creative
Watch this cool interactive exploration of the wealth of Elon Musk. Compare that wealth to Mansa Musa and use chalk to mark some kind of representation of Musa’s wealth in a parking lot or sidewalk. Be careful. Ask for permission before chalking someone’s private property.
Learn More
Read this BBC report about the richest person in history.