About
Jean Paul Getty Sr. (; December 15, 1892 – June 6, 1976) was an American petroleum industrialist who founded the Getty Oil Company in 1942 and was the longtime patriarch of the Getty family. A native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was the son of pioneer oilman George Getty. In 1957, Fortune magazine named J. Paul Getty the wealthiest living American, while the 1966 Guinness Book of Records declared him to be the world's wealthiest private citizen, worth an estimated $1.2 billion (approximately $9.1 billion in 2025). At the time of his death, he was worth more than $6 billion (approximately $26 billion in 2025). A book published in 1996 ranked him as the 67th wealthiest American who ever lived (based on his wealth as a percentage of the concurrent gross national product).