With an estimated fortune of $131bn (£99bn) he is the wealthiest man in modern history.
But he is by no means the richest man of all time.
That title is believed to belong to Mansa Musa, the 14th Century West African ruler who was so rich his generous handouts wrecked an entire country’s economy.
“Contemporary accounts of Musa’s wealth are so breathless that it’s almost impossible to get a sense of just how wealthy and powerful he truly was,” Rudolph Butch Ware, associate professor of history at the University of California, told the BBC.
Mansa Musa was “richer than anyone could describe”, Jacob Davidson wrote about the African king for Money.com in 2015.
In 2012, US website Celebrity Net Worth estimated his wealth at $400bn, but economic historians agree that his wealth is impossible to pin down to a number.
Talking about entourage, Musa made his pilgrimage to Mecca between 1324 and 1325 spanning 2,700 miles. His procession reportedly included 60,000 men, all wearing brocade and Persian silk, including 12,000 slaves, who each carried 1.8 kg (4 lb) of gold bars, and heralds dressed in silks, who bore gold staffs, organized horses, and handled bags.
The 10 richest men of all time
Mansa Musa (1280-1337, king of the Mali empire) wealth indescribable
Augustus Caesar (63 BC-14 AD, Roman emperor) $4.6tn (£3.5tn)
Zhao Xu (1048-1085, emperor Shenzong of Song in China) wealth incalculable
Akbar I (1542-1605, emperor of India’s Mughal dynasty) wealth incalculable
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919, Scottish-American industrialist) $372bn
John D Rockefeller (1839-1937) American business magnate) $341bn
Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov (1868-1918, Tsar of Russia) $300bn
Mir Osman Ali Khan ( 1886-1967, Indian royal) $230bn
William The Conqueror (1028-1087) $229.5bn
Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011, long-time ruler of Libya) $200bn
Source: Money.com, Celebrity Net Worth
