While most lost wealth, individuals like Howard Hughes, Joseph Kennedy, and J. Paul Getty significantly grew fortunes by investing in emerging industries (aviation, film, oil) or buying distressed assets, alongside financiers who profited from shorting stocks, but no single person definitively made the most, though oil tycoon J.P. Getty amassed huge wealth.
Both Boeing and Chrysler made more money during the depression than they did before it. Chrysler went from a 9% market share in 1929 to a 24% market share in 1933. Proctor and Gamble also increased their sales during the depression. Several movie companies that specialized in cheap movies did well.
John D. Rockefeller was known for a lifelong habit of handing out dimes and nickels to children and strangers, a practice he continued well into old age. The photo dates to 1929, when Rockefeller was 84 years old, making him one of the richest individuals in modern history at the time.
John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest Americans of all time and one of the richest persons in modern history.
Doctors and lawyers saw their incomes fall 40 percent. But no groups suffered more from the depression than African Americans and Mexican Americans. A year after the stock market crash, 70 percent of Charleston's black population was unemployed and 75 percent of Memphis's. In Macon County, Alabama, home of Booker T.
Even during our country's worst economic downturn, some folks still knew how to make a buck -- many bucks, in fact. The Sultan of Swat was never shy about conspicuous consumption.
While most lost fortunes, a few savvy investors profited from the 1929 crash by short selling (betting prices would fall), including legendary trader Jesse Livermore, Joseph P. Kennedy, and others like Bernard Baruch, who correctly foresaw the downturn and exited early, while wealthy investors later bought blue-chip stocks at fire-sale prices as the market bottomed out.
The Great Depression ended primarily due to the massive economic mobilization for World War II, which spurred government spending, created millions of defense industry jobs, and boosted industrial production, pulling the U.S. out of its long slump by the early 1940s. While President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs provided relief and reforms, it was the wartime economic boom, with widespread conscription and factory output, that finally solved the unemployment crisis.
Encyclopedia Britannica states that he is "widely considered to be the wealthiest person in history". The Catalan Atlas (1375 AD) describes Mansa Musa as 'the richest man in the region', but makes no mention of him being 'the richest in the world' or 'the richest in history'.
TIL: During the time of the Great Depression, a banker convinced struggling families in Quincy, Florida to buy Coca-Cola shares which traded at $19. Later, the town became the single richest town per capita in the US with at least 67 millionaires.
History has shown that even during major economic downturns, including The Great Depression, the sale of lipstick increases, known as the “lipstick effect.” Beauty products — which include everything from skin creams to hair products — have been hugely popular.
A 2019 study by Harvard Business Review found either Vanguard, BlackRock or State Street is the largest listed owner of 88% of S&P 500 companies. There is a perception that a few select companies own a vast majority of the stock market.
By the summer of 1932, the Great Depression had begun to show signs of improvement, but many people in the United States still blamed President Hoover.
1. George Soros. George Soros, often referred to as the «Man Who Broke the Bank of England», is an iconic figure in the world of forex trading. His net worth, estimated at around $8 billion, reflects not only his financial success but also his enduring influence on global markets.
Youngest is 19-year-old Johannes von Baumbach, an heir to the Boehringer Ingelheim fortune, a company best known as the largest private pharmaceutical company. The oldest, at 103, is George Joseph, the founder of in 1962 of Mercury General, an insurance provider with $5.5 billion in annual revenues.
Elon Musk's Net Worth
Musk ended 2025 as the world's richest person, with a net worth of $619 billion. The billionaire gained $187 billion on the year and was the first person to ever be worth $600 billion. Bloomberg estimates Musk's net worth at $640 billion, after he added more to his wealth.
Many people who owned stocks that went down a lot would have been OK eventually, except they bought on margin and were ruined. The best performing investments during the Depression were government bonds (many corporations stopped paying interest on their bonds) and annuities.
The Great Depression started with the 1929 Stock Market Crash (Black Thursday/Tuesday) after a period of rampant speculation and buying on credit (margin), wiping out investments and consumer confidence, but it was fueled by underlying issues like overproduction, unequal wealth distribution, banking panics, and restrictive gold standard policies, which spread globally and led to massive declines in spending, production, and employment.