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Mansa Musa was the emperor of Mali, a landlocked country in West , during the 14th century.
Born in 1280, he became emperor in 1312 and was the first African ruler to be famous throughout Europe and the . He reigned until 1337.
Historians believe he was the richest person to have ever lived, with a wealth of more than $400 billion, or £315 billion, in today’s money. Much of what we know about the emperor comes from the writings of ancient Arab historians and scholars.
For context, , the wealthiest individual in the world today, known for his key roles in the space company SpaceX and Tesla, has a net worth in 2024 of just under $304 billion (£239 billion). , best known as the founder of Amazon, has a net worth of $219 billion, or £179 billion.
Mansa Musa’s new trade works made the already wealthy country the wealthiest in Africa. The wealth mostly came from gold, ivory and unique salt.
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The emperor of the Mali Empire in the 14th-century had a modern net worth of more than £315 billion. (Image: HistoryNmoor)
Catalan Atlas showing Mansa Musa sitting on a throne and holding a gold nugget (Image: Abraham Cresques)
Speaking to the , Rudolph Butch Ware, a historian of West Africa at the University of California said: “Contemporary accounts of Musa’s wealth are so breathless that it’s almost impossible to get a sense of just how wealthy and powerful he truly was”.
He is said to have spent so much gold in Cairo that the value of bullion (gold or silver in bulk before coining) crashed by 20 percent and it took economy 12 years to bounce back.
Mansa Musa gained the throne after his predecessor, Mansa Abu Bakr II, sailed out to find the edge of the with a large fleet of 2,000 ships and was never seen again.
With an army numbering around 100,000 men, including an armoured cavalry corps of 10,000 horses and a talented general, Mansa Musa was able to extend and maintain Mali’s vast empire, doubling its territory and making it second in size only to that of the Mongol Empire at the time.
During his reign, the kingdom grew as the new king annexed around 24 cities, stretching the border of the empire from the Atlantic on the east to what is now Niger in the west.
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Mali is a landlocked country in West Africa. (Image: Getty)
Mansa Musa was a devout Muslim, and observed one of the five pillars of Islam by undertaking a pilgrimage to . When he embarked on his Hajj in 1324, he travelled thousands of miles across treacherous terrain with 60,000 people, 21,000 kilograms of gold, 100 elephants and 80 camels.
Described as a city moving through the desert, each person was adorned with gold finery and even the wore Persian silk.
Mansa Musa brought back architects and scholars from his pilgrimage to Mecca who would build mosques and universities that made cities such as Timbuktu internationally famous.
In Spain, a mapmaker was inspired to create first detailed map of West Africa. Created around 1375, the map has Mansa Musa sitting regally on a throne, wearing an impressive gold crown, and holding a golden staff in one hand and a huge nugget or orb of gold in the other.
After his death, Mansa Musa’s sons inherited the throne, but the successors were unable to keep the empire together which eventually fell to the Moroccan Empire in 1670.