Rockefeller Became America's First Billionaire

The first man widely recognized as a dollar billionaire was American oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, whose fortune passed $1 billion in 1916. His Standard Oil empire controlled about 90% of U.S. oil refining by 1890 and became the era's most notorious corporate trust. Standard Oil helped drive state antitrust measures and the federal Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, although these laws also targeted monopolistic trusts in other industries. In 1911, the Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil broken into 34 companies, but Rockefeller retained shares in the successor firms and became even wealthier.

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