Meet the Richest Man Who Ever Lived

According to Forbes – last time they published their rich list – Amazon owner Jeff Bezos was the richest man in the world, with a fortune estimated at around 177 billion dollars. That’s a number that’s quite hard to get your head around, so let me put it this way: Jeff Bezos’ personal fortune is larger than the GDP of 75% of countries around the world. That’s one man wielding the equivalent riches of a nation, and a fairly big one at that.

This is a level of wealth nobody could conceivably spend in a lifetime, no matter how expensive their tastes. Seriously - Jeff is 57 years of age at the time of recording this video. Now, he’s probably going to have his head cryogenically frozen and live forever, but for the sake of making a point, let’s assume he’s going to live to 80.

In order to use up all of his 177 billion dollars before he died (discounting interest), he would need to spend almost 22 million dollars every single day for the rest of his life. That’s well over 10 times the average income an American makes over their entire career, every single day, for about 8400 days in a row. Yeeeeah.

But here’s something interesting. While Jeff Bezos may well be the richest man in modern times, he isn’t the richest human being ever to have lived. In fact, remarkably enough, if you adjust for inflation, he isn’t even close.

The individual who holds that title is estimated to have been in possession of a fortune well over twice the size of poor old Jeff’s, and larger than the fortunes of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet, and Jack Ma… combined. The funny thing is, despite his vaunted financial position in the annals of human history, there’s a very good chance you’ve never even heard of this guy. That being the case, let me introduce you: This is Mansa Musa - the richest man in history.

As for why you haven’t heard of him, there are two good reasons for that - first, he was born almost 750 years ago. And second, he was the sultan of the Mali empire. Most of my viewers live in Europe and the US - two parts of the world whose school systems have not traditionally put a lot of emphasis on African history.

But that’s a shame, because the Mali empire - the largest ever seen in Western Africa - was really quite something. At its height in the 14th century, it covered almost half a million square miles and was home to around 5% of the world’s population. It rose incredibly quickly - in the space of just a couple of generations during what’s known as the golden age of trade in Africa.

The rise of the Mali empire was built on its unfathomable wealth, and that came primarily from two things: gold, and salt, both of which were in rich local supply. So much so that at the time, approximately half of all the gold in the Old World - that’s Europe, Africa, and Asia - came from just 3 goldmines in Mali. The idea that a vast fortune could come from gold is no surprise, but the fact salt was such a major factor might seem a little odd when viewed through our modern lens.

But in many parts of fourteenth century Africa, salt was an incredibly valuable commodity - to the right buyer, it was literally worth its weight in gold. As unlikely as that may sound, it actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it. After all, salt is an essential part of the human diet - we quite literally can’t survive without it.

It also happens to make bland food much more palatable, and can be used as a preservative, which was especially useful before the invention of reliable refrigeration. In regions where salt was sparse, it was priceless. Gold, on the other hand, is… shiny.

We use it in all sorts of things today - from electronics to spaceships - but the fact it looked kinda pretty was about the extent of its appeal in the 14th century. Mansa Musa was born sometime around 1280 AD, and he came to the throne as the 10th ruler of the Mali empire in approximately 1312 AD. His rise to power was a slightly odd one - he was only ever supposed to be a temporary ruler, selected for this caretaker position when his predecessor, Abubakari Keita II, decided to go and find out what was on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

As you do. The emperor took some 3000 ships and set off into the vast expanse of ocean, leaving behind his throne and one of the greatest fortunes in history, all without a shred of evidence that there was anything to actually discover on the other side. So far as we know, neither Abubakari Keita II nor his 3000-strong fleet was never seen again, though a few historians believe he did indeed make it all the way to South America… but that’s a story for another day.

The important bit for our purposes is that this one-time ruler of the Mali empire never came back from his bold voyage, and so Mansa Musa officially ascended to the throne, where he set about extending the borders of his lands and growing his already vast wealth. By the way, I should point out that ‘Mansa’ is a job title rather than a first name - it means ‘emperor’ or ‘sultan’. Anyway, as the head of one of Africa’s greatest empires, just how rich was Mansa Musa?

Well before we get to the numbers, how about an example. The new emperor was a devout Muslim, meaning much like today, it was his solemn duty to undertake the Hajj at least once in his lifetime (the Hajj being a pilgrimage to Mecca and one of the 5 pillars of Islam). It’s no exaggeration to say that, when Mansa Musa decided it was time to go to Mecca, the pilgrimage that ensued from Mali to the Arabian peninsula is one of the most remarkable journeys ever made by a human being.

Well, I say ‘a’ human being. What I actually mean is, 60,000 men and women, 100 elephants, 80 camels, a personal guard of 500 highly trained warriors, and enough food, water, and animals to eat for everyone. Basically, Mansa Musa undertook this 2700 miles pilgrimage at the centre of an entire movable city - a caravan that stretched longer than the eye could see.

I mean, it was bigger and more extravagant even than the entourage Aladdin took with him to impress Princess Jasmine, and that was made by a magic genie. Now, if you’re anything like me you’ll like to take a bit of spending money when you go on a trip, and it seems Mansa Musa did too, because tucked away in a bum bag - I absolutely refuse to say fanny pack - he’d reserved a little extra cash to treat himself along the way. Of course, ‘a little extra cash’ has something of a different meaning when you’re the richest man ever - in this case, it was 21,000 kilograms of solid gold.

You know, just in case there were some bargains to be had in duty free. You might be wondering how exactly he transported such a vast amount of gold – or at least, the twenty thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine kilograms that didn’t fit in his bum bag. That job was left to his 12,000 slaves, each of whom was given almost 2 kilos in solid gold apiece.

Along with the bullion, Mansa Musa also brought thousands of kilos of gold dust, which was used as currency throughout his kingdom. Take all this together - the tens of thousands of people and hundreds of animals, the unimaginable quantities of gold - and it’s fair to say the world had never before seen anything quite like the display of wealth Mansa Musa put on during his trip to Mecca. And yet, in reality, this extravagant show of riches wasn’t all that it seemed.

As you may well know, another of the pillars of Islam is Zakat - which is the giving alms to charitable causes. That’s right, Mansa Musa hadn’t brought all this gold for himself - he was planning to give it away. Like, all of it.

It’s said that so much gold was handed out to the poor en-route to Mecca that Mansa Musa singlehandedly crashed the price of the commodity across most of North Africa and the western Arabian peninsula, including in major gold-trading cities like Cairo, Medina, and Mecca itself, precipitating a decade long recession. He was basically the Mr Beast of his day. But his generosity was about more than just cold hard gold dust.

Mansa Musa also wanted to share his beliefs far and wide. But being the richest man in history, he didn’t settle for simply spreading the word. Instead, he started a tradition - every Friday for the entirety of the pilgrimage, no matter where he found himself, he had a mosque built.

Considering the trip took almost 2 years in total, that’s a lot of mosques. In the interests of presenting a balanced view, I should point out that a lot of time has passed since Mansa Musa ruled over the Mali empire, and written records from the time are pretty much non-existent. That means it’s difficult to be completely sure his intentions on this pilgrimage were solely philanthropic and spiritual.

Some historians suspect he was keen to show off his immense wealth and resources as a kind of medieval PR exercise - a branding mission designed to impress his friends, frighten his enemies, and just generally put the Mali empire on the map. And it certainly did exactly that - both figuratively and literally. Because as a direct result of the fame Mansa Musa gained for himself and his empire on his way to Mecca, both would soon begin to crop up on world maps for the first time, including the Catalan Atlas - one of the most important medieval maps of the 14th century.

You can see Mansa Musa himself right here, holding a gold coin and just generally looking like a bit of a boss. The pilgrimage also acted like a sort of epic recruitment campaign, with Mansa Musa’s wealth, generosity, and effortless power winning him thousands of supporters and securing his empire the services of some of the most celebrated thinkers and artists of the era - many of whom he brought back west when the caravan returned home after completing the Hajj. Speaking of returning home, it was around this time that Mansa Musa began to sprinkle a little gold dust within the borders of his own lands, too, building mosques and madrasas - those are educational institutions - in many cities.

But there was one place in particular for which Mansa Musa reserved most of his attention - Timbuktu. It’s somewhere you’ve almost certainly heard of, even if you don’t know why and can’t point to it on a map. You may even think it’s some kind of mythical location like Atlantis or El Dorado - don’t worry, plenty if people do.

These days, Timbuktu is used in the English language as a byword for somewhere unimaginably distant and remote, a status it likely earned because no European managed to figure out how to get there until the 1830s. But the main reason the name became famous in the first place is largely thanks to Mansa Musa. He annexed Timbuktu on his way back from Mecca and set about turning it into one of the most important centres for trade, culture, religion, and learning not just in Africa, but around the world.

The Djinguereber Mosque, which Mansa Musa paid for with 200 kilograms of solid gold, still stands today and makes up part of Timbuktu University, for a time one of the world’s premiere seats of knowledge boasting 25,000 students and a library of a million books – that’s more than were held in the Great Library of Alexandria at the height of its flame - I mean fame. And all this at a time when most Europeans believed Africa was a continent full of uncultured savages. Putting an exact number on Mansa Musa’s bank account today is obviously pretty difficult, but the figure most often cited - accounting for inflation - is approximately 400 billion dollars – that’s about the GDP of Norway or Ireland.

In truth, it’s nothing more than a finger in the air - not that it really matters. Mansa Musa was a man so wealthy that the exact numbers involved aren’t important. His wealth was, to all intents and purposes, limitless.

He could do whatever he wanted, whenever he felt like it. Luckily, it seems that what he most often wanted to do was give his wealth away in order to improve the lives of others. And there are worse ways to spend the greatest fortune in history, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Thanks for watching.