Billionaire

Mansa Musa, who ruled the West African empire of Mali in the 14th century, was one of the richest men in history. He ruled over a vast empire that was rich in gold and other precious resources, and he was renowned for his generosity and wealth. Mansa Musa, had an estimated fortune of $400,000,000,000 at the time of his death in 1331.

John D. Rockefeller Sr. (1839 – 1937) was an American oil industry business magnate and philanthropist. He was America's first-ever billionaire (not even including inflation) and is widely considered the wealthiest American of all time and the richest person in modern history.

Despite dying worth more than $2 billion, billionaire oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty (1892-1976) was a miser, installing a payphone in his Surrey mansion and ‘dial-locking devices’ on other telephones.

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (1957-2011) was a son of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate. The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $25–30 million.

Roberto Goizueta, the Coca-Cola CEO from 1980 to 1997, was the first person to become a billionaire by being an employee and not a company founder (or heir).

Bill Gates became a billionaire (US dollars) at the age of 31. He has endowed a foundation that has given several billion dollars to various charitable and educational projects.

Bill Gates

Robert L. Johnson is the founder of BET (Black Entertainment Television) and is widely regarded as the first African American to become a billionaire. He founded BET in 1980 and grew the company into one of the largest media companies serving the African American community.

J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, was named by Forbes magazine as the first person to become a billionaire through writing books in 2004. The books, which were first published in 1997, quickly gained a huge following, and the series has since sold over 500 million copies in over 80 languages. The success of the books led to a highly successful film franchise, merchandise, and theme parks, further contributing to Rowling's wealth.

Rowling is also the first person who lost her billionaire status because of giving huge sum of money in donations.

Rowling at the White House Easter Egg Roll, 2010

In 2015, Forbes named entrepreneur/CEO Elizabeth Holmes the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world. Then in 2016, allegations of fraud collapsed her company's valuation, rendering her stock worthless and reducing her net worth to zero.

At the age of 19, Kevin David Lehmann net worth was an estimated $2.4 billion in Forbes World’s Billionaires 2022 list, making him the world’s youngest billionaire. The list’s only teenager inherited a 50% stake in German drugstore chain dm-drogerie markt from his father. 

Chinese billionaire, Zong Qinghou, eats the same meals as his workers and lives on only $20 a day. As of March 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$8.7 billion. 

The world's richest self-made woman, Zhong Huijuan, started out as a middle-school chemistry teacher. As the founder, CEO, and chair of Hansoh Pharmaceutical, she has a net worth of US$19.7 billion.

Due to an error with PayPal, a man was credited with 92 trillion dollars making him briefly the richest man ever.

Forbes' 2022 list of the world's billionaires included 2,668 billionaires with a total net wealth of $12.7 trillion, down 97 members from 2021. 

Harvard University has produced 188 billionaires, the most of any college in the world.

With 145 billionaires, Beijing is the city in the world with the most billionaires. In fact, it is now called the “billionaire capital of the world."

Geneva, Switzerland, is the city with the most billionaires per capita, Geneva has 19 billionaires and an estimated population of 198,979, which means that there are around 9.5 billionaires per 100,000 people.

About three out of 10 billionaires—29.9%—around the world did not have at least a bachelors degree in 2015.

Of the 3,311 billionaires in the world in 2021, only 12.9 percent were women,

There are slightly more than 500 billionaires in America, making your odds of becoming one roughly one in 578,508.