The richest private individual in modern history, John D. Rockefeller boasted an estimated net worth of $1.4 billion at the time of his death in 1937, the equivalent of $21.7 billion (£17bn) in 2024. However, some financial scholars have even suggested he may have been worth somewhere in the region of $400 billion (£315bn) in today's money.

One of the fathers of modern philanthropy, the Rockefeller patriarch donated the bulk of his wealth to good causes.