Manu Joseph: What Elon Musk can learn from the ‘richest man ever'

Mint

15-06-2025

Elon Musk, the world's richest man among those whose wealth is known, recently found himself in a rare spot for someone of his influence: overplaying his hand. In a public spat with Donald Trump, Musk denounced the American president, suggested he should be impeached and even floated a serious allegation involving the late Jeffrey Epstein, who was charged with sex trafficking minors. Musk also claimed his money helped Trump win the presidency.
Such bluster would have been the doom of a billionaire in most nations. That Musk survived this is due to the one Western value he unwittingly relied on while helping ruin it: the right to criticize power fearlessly.
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Yet, even in America, where the old habit of being the West lingers, Musk was forced to back-pedal. Trump threatened him on social media with legal scrutiny and the withdrawal of government contracts.
To understand the limits of wealth when it meets state power, Musk may want to get to know, if he doesn't already, one man who many consider the richest person who ever lived. No one clarifies the relationship between money and state better than Jacob Fugger, a 16th-century banker.
In today's money, Fugger's wealth would be worth some $400 billion dollars in hard assets. Musk's net worth is similar, but more volatile, as we have seen lately. But this does not demonstrate Fugger's true financial might in his time. In his book,The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: The Life and Times of Jacob Fugger, Greg Steinmetz states that when Fugger died in 1525, his wealth amounted to 2% of Europe's GDP at a time when Europe was an economic powerhouse and there was no US. In comparison, Musk's peak net worth was lower as a proportion of the US economy.
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The political influence of Musk is impressive, but Fugger was at another level. Fugger dealt with emperors and popes. He financed wars, revolutions and once practically bought the Holy Roman Empire for his royal client. He also got a pope to cancel a Christian sin—usury, or the practice of charging interest on loans.
In 1523, he wrote a letter to Charles V, one of the most powerful men on earth at the time as the holy Roman Emperor with a string of other monarchic titles. To this man, his lender Fugger wrote, 'It is well known that without me your majesty might not have acquired the imperial crown… You will order that the money which I have paid out, together with the interest upon it, shall be reckoned up and paid without further delay."
The first part of the quoted line sounds like Musk and on the whole it appears even more self-destructive than Musk's online fight with Trump. But Charles paid up. Maybe because Fugger was not being as disrespectful as we imagine, maybe medieval Europe was a place where seasoned men of the world spoke frankly. Also, Fugger was right; Charles couldn't do without him.
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Fugger, like Musk, was given to boasting. But his boasts were strategic—a form of advertising to remind monarchs that only he could move great sums.
Whatever Fugger did must have been respectful by the customs of his time. In any case, he did not hesitate to flatter. After all, it was an age when it was not so hard for an emperor to execute a mere wealthy man, or put him away in some dungeon. But there was a delicate way to deal with power.
Emperors controlled all land and they could convert it into money, but a way of the world even then was that rulers ruled by spending money and not making it. So they needed those special men who knew how to make it, who had a lot of it and who could lend it in return for various privileges, like mining rights.
It was a tricky business to lend to emperors, for those powerful men were often broke and could simply renege. The only thing stopping them was a loss of reputation, which would make their future borrowing impossible or more expensive. Even so, emperors stole all the time from businessmen.
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When Charles's grandfather Emperor Maximilian needed funds, he didn't just ask nicely. He forced Fugger and other bankers to buy imperial bonds with no collateral, under a 'fairness' argument—that people like Fugger were able to do business because of the safety and peace Maximilian assured. Fugger wrote to Maximilian stating something many capitalists after him would say—that big business, by its very existence, is a moral force because it creates employment. But eventually, Fugger had to buy bonds.
Like Musk, Fugger took great political bets. He funded the Church and also sponsored events that led to a movement against the Church, the Reformation. He also pioneered an early news network to gain an intelligence advantage over rivals. Yet, through it all, Fugger knew how to behave in front of a crown.
Fugger appeared to understand that there were two streams of power—one that came from the masses, which was accumulated in one person, the power of the state. And another sort of power which came from being useful to the state.
In Fugger's time, it was very clear that it was foolish to challenge the state's power. In Musk's time, there is a feeling in the West that a man like him can challenge the state, or the new emperors of our time. This is a myth. Sure, Musk is wildly famous himself, which could lead anyone in his place to overvalue it. But being famous is not the same as being the repository of the will and grouses of people. Celebrity is often not the same as politics.
The author is a journalist, novelist, and the creator of the Netflix series, 'Decoupled'.