People That Are RICHER Than Elon Musk...

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Who's the richest person in history? So many of you guys linked this video over, man. I'm hyped to check it out, especially by Jack Pockets. You guys said this is really good and really interesting. And I love interesting. So, let's see this together. Please, let's go. If someone with an average salary wanted Elon Musk's net worth, they would have to work for 8 million years. That's 30 times longer than human beings have existed. And in the >> Yeah. How long have humans been around?

[00:00:26]Like what? 300,000 years or 200 what is it? time it's taken me to tell you this, Elon has made another $100,000.

[00:00:33]>> How does that feel, guys?

[00:00:36]15 seconds. How does that feel? 15 seconds into this video, 100K in his pocket.

[00:00:45]>> But the craziest thing about Elon is that he's not even the richest person in history. He's actually not even close.

[00:00:52]If you look back in time, there are people that make Elon look broke. So, let's go find the richest human to ever exist.

[00:01:00]>> Who the hell could it even Hold on. If I think about this even properly, maybe like would the what's his name? The emperor. Oh my gosh. You guys probably know who I'm talking about. That cuz he owned empires, right? Cuz even then, money was completely starting in the late 80s with a Colombian billionaire who revolutionized the energy supplement industry, Pablo Escobar. He was raking in $420 million a week. But his net worth after inflation only reached 80 billion. So on paper, he's not even beating Elon. But unlike everyone else in this video, Pablo's wealth wasn't tied up in stocks or politics. He just had literal dollars. He was spending a grand a week on rubber bands just to hold them together. And damage to them cost him 2 billion a year. So So he would literally have so many rubber bands holding these together, it starts damaging the money. And then bro just I mean that's crazy, bro. Hey man, what kind of problems are these? Why even just have it? I mean, you had to have it in stacks of cash, right? Because you were hiding a bunch of drugs. It was drug money, so you can't have it in a bank. Obviously, they would just seize that. So, you had to have it in cash.

[00:02:08]But then look at the money, bro.

[00:02:09]Completely destroyed by rubber bands.

[00:02:11]This happens. Pablo wasn't the richest person in history overall, but if we're talking actual cash, he probably was.

[00:02:18]But let's go back in time to see a very different kind of wealth. The years In 1945, World War II just ended, and in America, millions of soldiers are coming home. They'll return to a bluecollar economy where families can be supported on a single income. The American dream is alive and well. How's everyone else doing?

[00:02:38]>> Oh my goodness, bro.

[00:02:42]Oh my gosh. It's in these ruins where we'll find one of the richest men to ever live >> and one of the most horrible.

[00:02:49]>> Joseph Stalin, the communist ruler of the Soviet Union, was uninterested in money. He had practically no personal possessions outside of his pipes, books, and plain military tunic. He did live much better than his citizens, having access to things like food, but he wasn't basking in luxury. His payubs show what the [ __ ] Yo, I like this guy's little like dark humor, but [ __ ] man. Like it just makes me like holy cuz realizing all of this stuff especially in this sense that he's putting it like in history man this was so messed up bro and like the famine and all of this stuff that happened like my greatg grandmother escaped because I'm Brazilian right escaped Germany to and she escaped to Brazil and then here I am right and now I live in America of But knowing that her situation, you can never grasp the idea and you can never grasp the idea of what Stalin did, right? Because sure, you can read it like I've read it. You can hear about it in history class. You can hear them talk about it, but holy moly, you have no clue like how torturous it must be.

[00:04:04]>> Making today's equivalent of 30K a month. But according to his son, he just let the checks pile up on his desk, and he probably didn't even have a savings account. The reason Stalin is considered one of the richest men in history, despite technically having no money, is because he didn't need money. He already owned the entire state. Doing anything that questioned his power, even something like telling a private joke, would get you goologed or executed.

[00:04:27]Stalin had so much control that after he had a fatal stroke, no one called a doctor for 12 hours because everyone was too scared of Stalin waking up and punishing them for acting without official orders. Oh my goodness.

[00:04:42]Oh my goodness.

[00:04:44]Yo, that is so terrifying, dude.

[00:04:49]Oh my god. So despite being broke on paper, Stalin had complete control over an economy that would today be worth $10 trillion. See, in order to find the richest person in history, we need to think bigger than just money. Every person in this video will represent a different time period and a different form of wealth, whether it be political power or cash or company equity. And in the end, only one will be determined as the richest person in history. So let's move on to our next contender. In 1909, Adolf Hitler was homeless. He had moved to Vienna to pursue his dream of becoming an artist, but things weren't really working out. He got rejected from art school and found himself selling small paintings and >> Yeah, that's literally how I envisioned him, too.

[00:05:32]>> Things weren't really working out. He got >> this little crying face, >> rejected from art school, and found >> he threw a little fit, a little tantrum, and it started all of this. And he just had his tantrum in the perfect timing.

[00:05:44]Is that not ridiculous? His tantrum was just in the perfect timing where Germany was like desperate and he just took advantage of it.

[00:05:52]>> Found himself selling small paintings and postcards just to get by and sleeping in hostiles. Then after fighting in the First World War and beginning his political involvement, he attempted to forcefully overthrow the government, which got him locked up for 9 months. Hopefully, he'll use these 9 months mine compon Oh my lord. Yo, by the way, guys, you have to know, like, I'm laughing at this because this is like one of those like the way he put it, like structured it, you know what he doing? But I think this is insane, bro. What quite literally made me who I am today was what he did.

[00:06:35]Cuz I wouldn't even be here if my grandmother hadn't had to escape this goddamn [ __ ] By the way, that's another thing. My my grandmother and especially my mother would tell me about her and mention that like no German wanted this by the way. A lot of them just had to deal with it and a lot of them escaped, right? There's so many that left or tried to flee. so many horrible things, so many horrible stories, so many dark stories even from my grandmother that she would experience because she herself, especially some of her family members being Jewish, horrific, horrific. I'm pretty sure, especially her other family members, there's a whole lot, man. I'm not going to get into it, but this one of those stories that definitely hurts my heart. But jeez, bro, this book >> released in 1925, the racism manifesto met with mediocre sales. But as Germany's situation declined, Minecom's popularity grew. And when Hitler took power in 1933, the book was everywhere.

[00:07:38]It was also around this time when Hitler realized he had access to developer commands. He instructed the government to buy 6 million copies of his own book and hand them out to soldiers, government officials, and newlyweds. And then what he did destroyed every other book, every other piece of entertainment. Nope, you can't do that, right? Only this book cuz it would be like seized, right? And they would burn all the books. Oh my gosh, how many books destroyed, bro? I love books. And I'm not here acting quirky. I just genuinely do like books. There was a time period I hated books, right, as a kid, but I love them now. But still, it's insane. I'm actually in a book, by the way. There's a a Kishmire family.

[00:08:19]Uh, this is my German middle name.

[00:08:22]Gabriel Kisher Silva. Kishmire. So, K I R C H M E Y E R. That is my middle name.

[00:08:32]German as hell.

[00:08:35]Avoided a $2 million bill by making himself taxexempt. His next lick was copyrighting his own image, which allowed him to collect royalties on every postage stamp sold in Nazi Germany. Then he copyrighted his speeches so he could collect money when they were printed in the news. These passive income streams made Hitler millions. By the end of his life, Minecom had sold around 10 million copies, which actually isn't an insane amount. For reference, he was outsold 3 to1 by Anne Frank. But Hitler did have one last side hustle. Between 1933 and 1945, it was estimated that he received over $5 billion in donations from his supporters. Most of this coming from wealthy businessmen. It's impressive how much personal money Hitler was able to milk out of his position. But his real wealth came from his military might. At its peak in 1942, Nazi Germany controlled nearly all of Europe, stealing hundreds of billions in resources and putting millions of people into forced labor. So through his conquests, Hitler commanded resources worth 3 trillion in today's dollars. But before dictators, there was a man building a very different type of empire.

[00:09:37]Henry Ford had a revelation. If you pay them more and let them sleep, your slaves won't revolt. In 1914, Henry made the radical decision to double wages from $250 to $5 a day. He then cut the work week from 6 days to 5 days. After seeing the operations of meat packing plants, Ford organized his workers in a line, an assembly line. What resulted was production time for the Ford Model T dropping from 12 hours to 90 minutes.

[00:10:05]Prices dropped from 850 to 290. And for 50 years, the Model T was the most sold car in history. But Ford's greatest invention wasn't the assembly line or the Model T. What was it?

[00:10:15]>> See, after Ford made automobiles accessible to the masses, people began moving outside of cities and driving back and forth to work. And after the success of Ford's mass production methods, they were widely copied by companies and countries. The suburbs, commuting, and the modern work schedule can all be traced back to Henry Ford, which is why many credit him as the inventor of the middle class. So despite his measly $200 billion personal net worth, Ford's massive influence might make him the richest person in history.

[00:10:42]But Henry's success was only possible thanks to the men who came before him.

[00:10:47]It's the late 1800s. The telephone, telegraph, and light bulb are currently being invented. Pollution is awesome.

[00:10:53]Child labor is legal. Yes.

[00:10:58]Regulations don't exist. Long hours and unsafe working equipment give employees a healthy work.

[00:11:04]>> Okay. Yep. That's what I was expecting him to say.

[00:11:06]>> He just said for maximum capitalism, three men would define this era. The OG being Cornelius Vanderbilt, who conquered the railroad industry.

[00:11:16]>> Bro, am I crazy to like say that name is the craziest name. That and Humphrey.

[00:11:22]Humphrey and Cornelius.

[00:11:25]Just give it up, bro. I'm sorry. Yo, somebody named Cornelius going to comment in the comments like, "Dude, what did I do?"

[00:11:32]and died with more money than the US Treasury. The next was Andrew Carnegie, who made a fortune with steel, then devoted the rest of his life to philanthropy. And this was during a time before charity tax advantages. He actually meant that [ __ ] But the richest of the three was Isn't that insane? By the way, too, like damn, he actually meant that [ __ ] Cuz now people have that if like you do something for charity, you can just get taxes off that [ __ ] Like it's nothing. So now like no one knows if you're genuinely doing it unless you're doing it for taxes, right?

[00:12:06]Like nah, you're doing that for taxes.

[00:12:09]You fed these kids to get some off your taxes though, right? But back then it's just like you don't get nothing out of it, right? Except just I did that.

[00:12:17]>> A time before charity tax advantages. He actually meant that [ __ ] But the richest of the three was John D.

[00:12:23]Rockefeller. In 1870, John founded Standard Oil. He quickly curb stomped his competitors through innovation and screwing them over. And by the 1880s, he controlled 90% of America's oil refining. But his empire fell in 1911 when the US Supreme Court declared Standard Oil an illegal monopoly and ordered it to be broken up into 34 new companies. This judicial punishment destroyed Rockefeller's fortune and he ended up dying in poverty.

[00:12:48]>> What?

[00:12:48]>> Just kidding. After the breakup, >> I say no, he did not. ownership in each of the new companies and their stock values soared, making him richer than ever before. The antitrust breakup resulted in Rockefeller becoming the world's first billionaire. And at his peak in 1913, he was worth 2% of the US GDP. Estimates of his personal worth in today's dollars range from 4 to 600 billion, making him potentially the richest person ever. But before the robber barons, there was a family who bankrolled entire empires. The year is 1744. The United States doesn't exist yet. The life expectancy is 30. Cities are full of [ __ ] There's no electricity. In a small Jewish ghetto, Mayor Amshell Rothschild is born.

[00:13:29]>> Rothschild.

[00:13:30]>> He starts in business at a young age, working his way up from being a rare coin dealer to a successful banker. Then in the early 1800s, he launches a conquest. He sends his five sons to the five key financial centers of Europe.

[00:13:42]Every son does their part, and before the invention of the telephone, the Rothschilds have established the first international banking network. They finance wars and peacetime recovery, pay for massive projects like the Suez Canal, and give out loans that save count's economies. But the Rothschilds have one serious problem. For centuries, Jews in Europe had been prohibited from owning land, blocked out of most industries, and at risk of property confiscation or exile. So, in order to ensure their survival, the Rothschilds invested in stocks, bonds, and debts rather than just tangible assets like gold or real estate that could have been taken or destroyed. Another method they used to ensure their wealth stayed within the family, the cousin technique.

[00:14:20]Through financial tactic, >> oh my gosh.

[00:14:25]Oh no.

[00:14:29]And incest, the Rosschilds managed to mostly avoid persecution. But the extent of their wealth today is widely debated.

[00:14:35]Some estimates have claimed the Rosschilds have a current net worth of $500 trillion.

[00:14:42]But the only Rosschild you'll find >> Wow. Oh, >> 500 trillion.

[00:14:49]>> Yeah, Earth is $16 trillion. How is that?

[00:14:55]>> But the only Rothschild you'll find today on the Forbes rich list is Jeff Rothschild. He's worth 3.2 billion. He works at Facebook and he is not related to the Rothschilds. The Rothschilds no longer have much centralized family wealth, but at their peak, their total worth would have been the largest single fortune in history. On an individual level, the richest ever was Nathan Rothschild. According to estimates, his peak net worth today would be around 20 billion, but his power and connections would likely have been worth a lot more.

[00:15:22]To find our next contender for the richest person in history, let's go back to Europe in the 1500s. Christopher Columbus just got back from America. The church owns everything, and Jacob Fugger is born into a wealthy German family.

[00:15:34]After inheriting the family business, Jacob starts expanding it from merchant trading to banking. And soon, he's handing out massive loans to finance everything from art projects. Oh, dude.

[00:15:45]I was here. I literally was here. Oh my gosh. It's crazy inside. In the ones in Italy, bro. Just in general. I absolutely loved >> to wars and elections. In 1519, he spent the modern equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars to get Emperor Charles Veleed. But when Charles was slow to pay back his debts, Jacob sent him an angry letter reminding him of his place. It is well known and clear as day that your imperial majesty could not have claimed the Roman crown without my help.

[00:16:15]>> History repeats itself.

[00:16:19]>> Church officials ended up getting in so much debt to Fugger that they started selling heaven passes called indulgences. This led to a protest which led to a religious revolution. Fugger had more influence than kings, but he was also a nice guy. He made the first ever social housing complex. And to this day, 150 people still live in these apartments at the cost of $1 a year, as well as three required daily prayers for the Fugger family. At his peak, Jacob owned 2% of Europe's GDP, which would be around 400 billion today, but the richest person in history may have been further back in time.

[00:16:51]>> Ah, the empire.

[00:16:52]>> In 1324, a man went on a pilgrimage across Africa. His name was Mansam Musa.

[00:16:57]>> Mansam Musa, that's the one, bro. I love this crazy story though. Like >> the king of >> It's so interesting, man. I love history, bro.

[00:17:06]>> The Molly Empire. Molly had a lot of salt and a lot of gold. A lot of gold.

[00:17:11]So much gold that on Musa's pilgrimage, he covered himself, his 60,000 person entourage, and his hundreds of animals with thousands of pounds of gold. And then he handed out so much of that gold that it destabilized local economies. So he borrowed the gold back, which fixed the problem until he paid all the debts back at once. And everything crashed again. After Moose's multi-billion dollar road trip, he began showing up on maps decked out in gold, cementing his reputation in history as the original flexer. But estimating his net worth is borderline impossible since all accounts of Musa's trek come from secondhand testimony. It's believed that Musa controlled about half of the world's gold supply and the most common number I found for his total worth was 400 billion, but many numbers went much higher. So based on the amount of valuable resources under his control, Mansam Musa may be the richest person in history. But go back a hundred years and there was a man with a very different kind of wealth. In the early 1200s, Genghaskhan controlled more land than any man in history. His empire covered almost 20% of Earth's land area, making his estimated net worth today 130 trillion.

[00:18:12]>> The Mongol Empire was like one of the strongest empires period of all time at that time, right?

[00:18:19]>> But this is slightly misleading. Genghis never really had much wealth of his own and this was actually vital to his influence. Rather than taking for himself, what was redistributed to soldiers and commanders to promote loyalty. Genghask wore the same clothes and ate the same food as his crew. He slept in tents and asked to be buried with no markings or signs. Genghaskhan didn't really have desire for personal wealth or possessions, but based on his control of land, he may have been the richest guy to ever live. But let's go even further back in time to the year 1 AD. The people alive right now have no idea that they're living through a turning point in history. They actually don't even know what year it is. Romans think that it's year 754. Jews think it's 3761. The Chinese think it's year 9. And for the Greeks, it's 194. Every country is kind of doing their own thing. America is building early cities thanks to the Mayans. India is trading through the ocean and Silk Road. China just invented paper. And in Rome, Augustus Caesar is balling. A few years prior, he defeated Mark Anthony and Cleopatra in battle and snatched up Egypt as his personal property. He now controls around 20% of Rome's economic output. And that includes the tax flows, the treasury, the gold and silver mines, and revenue from conquered lands. He also has a money method where he kills rich people from his own empire just to take their stuff.

[00:19:36]>> What the f, bro? Like, yo, that's another thing, too. Like just to explain even deeper on some of that there there's like this idea that a lot of people now that we have like news channels and we have all these things and the completely built society with all this the standards or whatever there there is the misconception that like people are way more brutal nowadays because of weapons and things like that.

[00:20:01]But back then it was even more disgusting and brutal because of the spears of fighting. Just imagine yourself in a war back then as compared to now. Don't get me wrong, war in general, horrible.

[00:20:15]Even today, like the the the way that people pass or die from like weapons and things is just it's just horrible. But back then, people don't understand the misconception that it was even more brutal back then. It was even more disgusting back then with the spears and the kn and everything that they would do. And they were more angry, right?

[00:20:35]Because like we obviously became a lot more like okay these are the rules back then all for one one for all but like just yo like look at what he just did right think about how he did it too. Obviously it wasn't with a gun cuz this is like a funny edit but like imagine what he probably did.

[00:20:53]>> He also has a money method where he kills rich people from his own empire just to take their stuff.

[00:21:00]>> After Caesar passes in the year 14, he officially gets declared a god. a god with an estimated modern-day net worth of $5 trillion. But let's go back another 900 years.

[00:21:13]Civilization is in its early stages.

[00:21:15]Most people live short, difficult lives.

[00:21:18]Money in the form of coins doesn't yet exist.

[00:21:21]King Solomon rules over the kingdom of Israel, collecting gold by the ton. His yearly tax revenue is 666 talons of gold. He basks in his riches with his 700 wives. And in today's money, he's worth over $2 trillion. But this is all according to accounts in the Bible written hundreds of years after he would have lived. When we're this far back in time, details get murky. Written accounts are sparse and incredibly biased. The richest man from ancient times will never really know. So, who is the richest person in history? Looking at this graph, it seems like there's a lot of people who make Elon look broke.

[00:21:57]But these numbers don't tell the whole story. Hear me out. In 1913, John D.

[00:22:02]Rockefeller was worth 2% of US GDP.

[00:22:05]Today, Elon Musk is worth 1.4% of US GDP. So, Rockefeller had a larger share of the economy, making his inflation adjusted net worth higher than Elon's.

[00:22:14]But here's the catch. The US economy today is 22 times larger than it was in 1913. Rockefeller had a bigger slice of a much smaller pie.

[00:22:24]>> Estimated numbers don't tell the story of how the entire world has become more and more prosperous over time. Elon is now the biggest fish in the biggest pond that has ever existed. On top of this, his wealth is a personal fortune. It's well doumented and verifiable. Unlike ancient figures like King Solomon, it wouldn't disappear if he lost his positions of power. Unlike dictators and heads of state, he can access it for whatever he wants. and he harnesses technology that ancient figures would think is witchcraft. Elon is the richest person in history with his 400 billion today. Eventually, someone will get even richer, but based on history, everyone else will get richer, too. A yo, fire video. Fire video. Wow. Great video by him, bro. Absolutely love that. Let me know your guys' thoughts in the comments below. I love you guys. Take care of yourself. Till next time.

[00:23:16]>> Peace.

[00:23:18]How good you been living? Wait, how good you been living? I've been living too good for you. I've been living too. Did what I did and I do it again. Every move that I make, I ain't feeling repent.

[00:23:28]Nobody believes to believe it's a friend. And then you question your moves like you really bone in. Billy Bone in.

[00:23:34]>> Huh? Really?