John D. Rockefeller net worth
Split: 19
What is the net worth of John D. Rockefeller?
John D. Rockefeller is an American business magnate and philanthropist. As an accounting clerk, Rockefeller turned the $4,000 investment in the Cleveland refinery into the greatest wealth in modern human history. At the time of his death in 1937, John D. Rockefeller’s net worth was equal to $340 billion after adjusting for inflation and taking into account relative GDP at the time. For about 80 years, this inflation-adjusted net asset has made Rockefeller the richest American by far and the richest man in modern history. On November 4, 2021, he was surpassed by Elon Musk.
John D. Rockefeller’s wealth originated from Standard Oil Company, which eventually developed into a world monopoly. The reason Standard Oil may not be familiar today is that it was ruled as an illegal monopoly in 1911 and was divided into dozens of companies, especially; Sohio (later merged with BP); ESSO (later merged with ExxonMobil ); and SoCal (later merged into Chevron). Rockefeller previously owned 25% of the Standard Oil Monopoly, and he maintained proportional ownership of each new company. As competition in the oil market finally began, these companies became stronger and more dominant as independent entities, thereby actually increasing Rockefeller’s personal wealth.
What happened to Rockefeller Fortune?
The short answer is that he donated about half of his wealth to charity (through his foundation), and the other half was used as a trust fund for the benefit of family members for generations.
At the time of his death, John controlled approximately $1.4 billion in actual U.S. dollars and other current assets.
In 1917, John transferred $460 million to his only son, John D. Rockefeller Jr.. This is equivalent to about US$9.3 billion today.
In 1934, Little John invested $1.4 billion in six trust funds, one for each child (five sons and one daughter). In 1952, more than a dozen trusts were established for his grandchildren. Each is an inter-generational trust. The intergenerational trust locks the funds until the youngest grandson at the time of the death of the benefactor of the establishment. When that intergenerational event finally occurred, the Rockefeller Trust was divided into the next generation of new trusts.
Today, the Rockefeller family employs hundreds of financial managers who operate a “family office” on the 56th floor of 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City. These managers manage the $4 billion Rockefeller Foundation and approximately $20 billion in personal wealth, which belongs to approximately 250 heirs. As an example of the family’s modern wealth, Jay Rockefeller, the great-grandson of Sr. John, served as the Senator of West Virginia from 1985 to 2015. According to his last congressional financial disclosure, Jay-he was born a month older than his great-grandson-and his grandfather passed away-was worth $160 million in 2013. David Rockefeller, one of Little John’s children, was worth $3.3 billion when he died in 2017. His art collection alone is worth about 1 billion U.S. dollars.
Was John D. Rockefeller the first billionaire?
In 1902, an audit by Standard Oil Company revealed that John was personally worth 200 million U.S. dollars. This is equivalent to about $6 billion today. By 1913, two years after the collapse of the monopoly, as the world prepared for World War I and caused oil prices to soar, the latest audit revealed that John was personally worth 900 million U.S. dollars. This is equivalent to about 23.6 billion US dollars today.
John D. Rockefeller is often referred to as America’s first billionaire. On September 29, 1916, newspapers across the United States announced that Rockefeller became the first billionaire in the United States due to the rise in the stock price of Standard Oil the previous day. It is not clear whether these reports were true at the time. As we all know, Henry Ford officially became a billionaire in 1925 nine years later.
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early life
John Davidson Rockefeller Sr. was born in Richford, New York. He has five brothers and sisters. His father William Avery is not around, so his mother Eliza is basically a bankrupt single mother. Rockefeller worked hard to earn extra money and helped as much as possible at home. Eventually, his family moved to Moravia, New York, and then to Ovigo, New York, where he studied at Ovigo College. Later, the family moved to Strongsville, Ohio, where Rockefeller attended Central High School in Cleveland. He also completed a 10-week business course at Folsom Business School to study bookkeeping.
Early career
At the age of 16, after completing his studies, he found a job as an assistant bookkeeper at Hewitt & Tuttle, a small agricultural commission company in Cleveland. He only earns 50 cents a day, but still donates 6% of it to charity. This was an important opportunity for Rockefeller, because it was here that he began to learn about shipping negotiations and calculating shipping costs. In the end, he established a partnership with Maurice B. Clark. They opened their own small agricultural commission business and raised US$4,000 (US$113,822 in 2019 US dollars).
Soon after, Rockefeller and Clark built an oil refinery in Cleveland, Ohio, and they co-owned with the two brothers of Samuel Andrews and Clark. At that time, the federal government was subsidizing oil prices, and the market for refined oil products in the form of kerosene was huge. Two years later, Rockefeller bought the Clark Brothers and the company changed its name to Rockefeller Andrews. Rockefeller will soon prove that he is one of the best entrepreneurs in human history, he can turn money into more money, and never let greed stop him from sharing his wealth.
Petroleum business
Rockefeller’s younger brother William Jr. built another oil refinery in Cleveland in 1866 and soon brought him into the industry. In 1867, they recruited Henry Morrison Flagler and merged all of their combined assets into the Rockefeller, Andrews, and Flagler companies. By 1868, the company was the largest refinery in the world, with two refineries in Cleveland and a marketing subsidiary in New York. This laid the foundation for the establishment of the later Standard Oil Company. However, by 1869, the market’s ability to refine kerosene far exceeded supply and demand.
In January 1870, Rockefeller dissolved the partnership of Rockefeller, Andrews, and Flagler. Instead, he established the Ohio Standard Oil Company. Rockefeller continued his business model; his strategy was to purchase the least efficient competing refineries, enter and increase their efficiency, negotiate oil transportation discounts, weaken any competition, raise investment funds, and then acquire his competitors, even when necessary Make secret transactions. In 1874, his former biggest competitor, the major New York refiner Charles Pratt and Rockefeller reached an agreement, and their leaders Charles Pratt and Henry H. Rogers became Rockefeller partners. Standard Oil continued to grow, and by the end of the 1870s, they refined more than 90% of the oil in the United States. At the same time, Rockefeller has become a millionaire (after calculating inflation in 2019 dollars, it will reach 26 million U.S. dollars).
At the time, it was very difficult to run a company in multiple states. As a result, Standard Oil is actually composed of dozens of independent companies, each operating in a specific state. This makes the management of the entire enterprise inefficient and difficult. Therefore, Rockefeller’s legal team helped develop a solution: create a company’s company, or “trust.” The resulting Standard Oil Trust Company owns 41 companies and is operated by 9 trustees including Rockefeller.
With the development of the American antitrust movement, the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890. In 1911, the US Supreme Court ruled that New Jersey Standard Oil Company violated the law and was ordered to split into 34 new companies. Some companies that emerged as a result include ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and Esso (later Exxon Mobil, now part of Exxon Mobil). Rockefeller held more than 25% of Standard Oil’s shares at the time of the spin-off, and obtained a proportional share of each of 34 companies. Although Rockefeller’s control over the oil industry has generally decreased, the split is very profitable for him, because the net assets of the two companies have increased fivefold and his personal wealth has increased to 900 million US dollars. .
Charity
Rockefeller is a devout Christian. He always donates 10% of his income to his church. After his death, he also donated most of his wealth to charities in the form of foundations, which are still controlled by his family.
Rockefeller gave generously to education and founded the University of Chicago and Rockefeller University. He founded many organizations that benefit medical research, education, and science, and his research foundation helped eliminate yellow fever and hookworm disease. The more money he makes, the more generous he is. Some of his donations went to Spelman College in Atlanta to provide services to African American women. He also supports universities such as Yale, Harvard, Vaasa, Columbia and other educational institutions. Rockefeller was the founder of the Rockefeller Institute of Medicine, the Rockefeller Health Committee, and the General Education Committee that he established in 1903. The committee was established to give everyone equal opportunities for learning.
personal life
Rockefeller married Laura Celestia “Setti” Spelman in 1864. They have four daughters and one son in total. Rockefeller died of arteriosclerosis in May 1937, two months before his 98th birthday.
