Top 30 Wealthiest Businessman in History

(in today's dollars):

1) John D. Rockefeller ($192 billion);
2) Cornelius Vanderbilt ($143 billion);
3) John Jacob Astor ($116 billion);
4) Stephen Girard ($83 billion) - banking;
5) Bill Gates ($82 billion);
6) Andrew Carnegie ($75 billion);
7) A. T. Stewart ($70 billion) - department store;
8) Frederick Weyerhaeuser ($68 billion);
9) Jay Gould ($67 billion) - financier;
10) Stephen Van Rensselaer ($64 billion) - land;
11) Marshall Field ($61 billion);
12) Henry Ford ($54 billion);
13) Sam Walton ($53 billion);
14) Andrew W. Mellon $48 billion) - banking;
15) Richard B. Mellon ($48 billion) - banking ;
16) Warren E. Buffett ($46 billion);
17) James G. Fair ($45 billion) - silver mining;
18) William Weightman ($44 billion) - malaria drug;
19) Moses Taylor ($44 billion) - Citibank;
20) Russell Sage ($43 billion) - financier;
21) John I. Blair ($43 billion) - railroads;
22) Edward Henry Harriman ($39 billion) - railroads;
23) Henry Huttleston Rogers ($39 billion) - Standard Oil;
24) J. P. Morgan ($38 billion);
25) Oliver S. Payne ($37 billion) - Standard Oil;
26) Henry Frick ($36 billion) - coke/steel;
27) George Pullman ($34 billion) - railroad sleeping cars;
28) Collis Porter Huntington ($33 billion) - Central Pacific Railroad;
29) Peter A. B. Widener ($32 billion) - streetcar tracks;
30) James C. Flood ($31 billion) - silver mining.

(source: "The Wealthy 100: From Benjamin Franklin to Bill Gates-A Ranking of the Richest Americans, Past and Present" by Michael Klepper and Robert Gunther (New York, NY: Carol Pub. Group, 1996)