Unfortunately, Rockefeller’s ruthless business tactics had also earned him a nastier nickname, one that was equally hard to shake: “most hated man in America.” He would spend his later years trying to dispel that image, giving away much of his fortune and dispensing shiny new dimes to any little children who happened to cross his path, especially when news cameras were around. Google “America’s first billionaire” even today, and the name of Rockefeller dominates the results, just as it once did the oil industry, all the way from the well to the gas pump. Rockefeller, Sr., Ron Chernow estimated that Rockefeller’s wealth peaked at $900 million in 1913.īut the legend lives on. Recent Rockefeller biographers have been inclined to agree with Junior.įor example, in his authoritative 1998 biography, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., issued a statement insisting it was an exaggeration. Together with his other holdings “in various banks, railroads, enormous blocks of national, state, and municipal bonds, brings his total up to the billion mark,” the widely published account concluded.įrom then on, Rockefeller was often referred to as the country’s first (and for a long time, only) billionaire-even after his son, John D. Rockefeller’s 247,692 shares were now worth close to $499 million. of New Jersey the previous day had put him over the top, the papers said. Rockefeller had crossed the magical line from mere multimillionaire.Ī rise in the share price of Standard Oil Co. 29, 1916 newspapers across the land reported that John D. One hundred years ago this week, the U.S.

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