Money tree
How the wealthiest man alive stacks up
Augustus (63BC-14AD) was the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which at the time accounted for 25pc to 30pc of the world’s economic output. In its ranking of the 10 richest people of all time in 2014,
Time Magazine estimated Augustus’s wealth at $4.6 trillion, which, adjusted for inflation, would be worth almost $5 trillion by 2018.
A Scottish emigrant to America, entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) built up the Carnegie Steel Company. He eventually sold his business to JP Morgan for $480m in 1901. According to Time, his fortune equates to about 2.1pc of US GDP.
The Microsoft founder led the list of the wealthiest men alive for five years. One of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution, he is chairman of the world’s largest charitable foundation, with his wife Melinda, and has given away $31bn of his fortune so far.