Whenever there’s news about Elon Musk, it’s almost always a number that makes it hard to imagine. Hundreds of billions of dollars. Trillions of rupiah. In fact, recently, Musk became the first person recorded as having wealth of more than 1 trillion US dollars.
If so, does that mean Elon Musk is the richest human in history?
At first I thought the answer was clear: yes.
But after reading several economic historians’ writings, I began to doubt it. It turns out this question is much more complicated than simply turning to the Forbes or Bloomberg lists.
Try to imagine:
How do we compare the wealth of a 21st century technology entrepreneur to that of a 14th century African king or a 19th century American industrialist?
Is the fairest measure the amount of money one has?
The problem is, the modern dollar didn’t even exist in their day.
If you use inflation-adjusted values, the results can also be misleading because the world economic structure then and now is very different.
For example, at the height of his power, John D. Rockefeller controlled most of the United States oil industry. In its time, Standard Oil had an influence that is difficult to imagine when compared to modern companies.
Then there is Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire in the 14th century, who according to many accounts had such great wealth that his pilgrimage to Mecca reportedly caused gold prices to fluctuate in several regions he passed through.
On the other hand, Elon Musk’s wealth mostly comes from owning Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, and X shares. This means that his wealth can increase or decrease by tens of billions of dollars in just a matter of days due to market movements.
This is what I’m curious about: is it more accurate to call Musk the richest person in modern history, but not necessarily the richest in history?
Or instead we need to change our perspective on what wealth is.
Because perhaps wealth is not just the amount of money in an account, but rather how much control a person has over the economy of their time.
If we use that measure, names like Augustus Caesar, Mansa Musa, or Rockefeller could have a position that is as strong, or even stronger, than Elon Musk currently.
I finally tried to summarize various data, historians’ opinions, and economic comparisons across eras into an economic history documentary.
What’s interesting, after I finished making it, I didn’t get a definite answer.
Instead, I got a more interesting question:
According to you and Sista, who is the richest person in history?
(ul)(li)Elon Musk because his wealth figures are recorded in real-time?(/li)(li)Mansa Musa because the scale of his wealth is almost impossible to calculate?(/li)(li)Rockefeller because of his domination of the oil industry?(/li)(li)Or Augustus Caesar because he controlled most of the world economy during his time?(/li)(/ul)
I’m curious to see what friends here think, because it turns out this question is not just about money, but also about how we understand power, economics and history.
Please criticize, add or refute. In fact, I want to see another point of view from Kaskus residents, because topics like this usually always give rise to interesting discussions.
