Can you imagine what it would be like to be part of a family that is so wealthy and influential that they pretty much rule the world? In this article, we are going to go over 6 wealthy families that secretly run the world. By the end, you will understand how they got to be so rich and famous in the first place.
1. The Koch Family
The Koch family is an American corporate family best known for their political activism (aggressive opposition to climate change legislation, financial support for libertarian politics, criminal justice reform, and Republican Party causes.) They control Koch Industries. Fred C. Koch founded the family company after inventing a novel process for refining heavy crude oil into gasoline. Since 1980, when David Koch was the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential contender, Charles and David Koch have been involved in American politics. Their political contributions gained prominence in 2008, when they made contributions to 34 political and policy groups via their family foundations. The brothers declared their intention to raise over 880 million dollars in support of 2016 election candidates.
The Cato Institute, founded in 1974 with the assistance of Charles Koch, has frequently been listed among the top 25 US think tanks in terms of its effect on public policy in the United States. The Koch brothers have developed what may be the best-funded, most multi-dimensional public policy, political, and educational presence in the country today.
Koch Industries, Inc. is a Wichita, Kansas-based privately held international conglomerate business. Its companies manufacture, refine, and distribute petroleum, chemicals, energy, fiber, minerals, fertilizers, pulp and paper, as well as finance, commodities, trading, and investment. The company employs around 120,000 people in 60 countries and does almost half of its operations in the United States. It is the largest landowner outside of Canada in the Athabasca oil sands.
Flint Hills Resources LP, formerly Koch Petroleum Group, is a Fortune 500 refinery and chemicals firm headquartered in Wichita, Kansas.
Koch Minerals is a leading manager of dry-bulk commodities, as well as an oil and gas exploration and production company. Koch Pipeline owns and manages a pipeline network totaling 4,000 miles in length, which is used to transport oil, natural gas liquids, and chemicals. Matador Cattle Company owns three ranches, totaling 425,000 acres in Beaverhead, Montana, Matador, Texas, and eastern Kansas’s Flint Hills. Koch Industries acquired a refinery at North Pole, Alaska in 2004 that was connected to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
2. JP Morgan and Family
John Pierpont Morgan (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and banker who controlled Wall Street’s corporate finance throughout the Gilded Age. He was the driving force behind the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century wave of industrial consolidation in the United States. He created a coalition of financiers during the Panic of 1907 that prevented the American monetary system from collapsing.
J. P. Morgan devised a scheme to use an anti-slavery act that let Morgan and the Rothschilds sell gold directly to the United States Treasury. In 1901, US Steel became the world’s first billion-dollar corporation, with an authorized capitalization of 1.4 billion dollars, far beyond the scale of any other industrial enterprise and equivalent to the greatest railways. It aspired to control not only steel, but also the building of bridges, ships, railroad cars, wire, and nails.
Morgan assembled a team of bank and trust officials who transferred money between institutions, arranged for foreign lines of credit, and purchased the stocks of healthy companies as they plummeted. The crisis emphasized the critical need for a strong control system, which resulted in the establishment of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. While conservatives lauded Morgan for his civic responsibilities and commitment to the arts and religion, the left considered him a key character in the system they opposed. J.P. Morgan was criticized for the terms of his gold loan to the federal government during the 1895 crisis and for resolving the financial crisis of 1907.
When Thomas Alva Edison acquired his house on Madison Avenue in 1882, it became the city’s first electrically illuminated private dwelling. Morgan owned the “Cragston” mansion near Highland Falls, New York, and East Island was owned by his son of the same name.
United States Steel Corporation was formed in 1901 by the combination of Andrew Carnegie’s Carnegie Steel with J. P. Morgan’s United States Steel. As of 2018, the company was the 38th biggest manufacturer of steel in the world and the second largest in the United States, following only the Nucor Corporation.
3. The Bush Family
George Herbert Walker Bush (June 12, 1924 – November 30, 2018) was a politician and businessman in the United States of America. From 1989 until 1993, he served as the 41st President of the United States. Bush also served as Ronald Reagan’s 43rd vice president from 1981 until 1989. Bush presided over the invasion of Panama and the Gulf War, the latter of which ended Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait.
George Herbert Walker Bush worked as an oil salesman in Texas and California throughout the 1950s. He co-founded the Zapata Petroleum Corporation in 1953, an oil firm that operated in Texas’ Permian Basin.
From 2001 until 2009, his son, George Walker Bush served as the 43rd President of the United States. He previously served as the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.
William Hall Bush was born in New York City to Josephine Colwell Bush and financier Jonathan Bush. He is George W. Bush’s and Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s cousin. From 2008 through 2014, Bush presented The Billy Bush Show, a nationally syndicated conversation and music radio show. He has been the host of the syndicated newsmagazine television show Extra since 2019.
Billy Bush hosted a brief NBC prime-time version of Let’s Make a Deal in January 2003. He was also a correspondent for NBC’s morning TV show “Today” in New York. The Billy Bush Show is a nightly discussion radio and entertainment interview program broadcast from Los Angeles’ KBIG. It involves celebrity guests and listener calls and is focused on the biggest entertainment stories and personalities in the news. He co-hosted the syndicated national daily entertainment discussion show Access Hollywood Live from 2010 until 2016.
On October 7, 2016, video evidence of Donald Trump having a vulgar conversation with Bush was leaked, with Bush appearing to be oblivious that his microphone was turned on. Bush apologized for the recording, stating that he was “younger, less mature, and acted stupidly.” The audio prompted calls for his dismissal from the show, and he subsequently stated that he had no intention of addressing the topic live on the air. Bush was suspended from “Today” on October 9, 2016 by NBC for his participation in the 2005 video. Bush was dismissed on October 17 and hired as the host of Extra by Telepictures on May 8, 2019.
4. The Rothschild Family
The Rothschild family is a prosperous Jewish family from Frankfurt that rose to prominence under the leadership of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812). In both the Holy Roman Empire and the United Kingdom, the family was raised to noble status. Throughout the nineteenth century, the Rothschild family owned the biggest private wealth in both contemporary and historical history. Mayer Rothschild’s coat of arms depicts a clenched fist with five arrows, symbolizing the five dynasties created by his five sons.
Mayer Rothschild’s success plan was to retain family ownership of their banks, allowing them to preserve complete concealment regarding the amount of money they have. Mayer Rothschild succeeded in preserving the family riches through carefully arranged marriages, frequently between first- or second-cousins (similar to royal intermarriage). By the late nineteenth century, nearly all Rothschilds had married outside the family, most frequently into the nobility or other financial families. Nathan Mayer Rothschild was essential in funding the British war effort nearly entirely on his own.
To convey gold across war-torn Europe, the family established a network of agents, shippers, and couriers. In 1815 alone, the Rothschilds lent Britain’s continental allies 9.8 million pound sterling (over 13 million dollars) in subsidized loans. Nathan Rothschild projected that the peace’s reduction in government borrowing would result in a two-year stability of British government bonds. Rothschild family banking firms pioneered worldwide high finance throughout Europe’s industrialization and were critical in sustaining the world’s railway systems. Throughout the nineteenth century, the family acquired a sizable share of the land in Mayfair, London.
Nathan Rothschild raised 2,000,000 pounds (almost 3 million dollars) for Brazil in 1825 as part of the price for Portugal’s acknowledgment of its independence.
By the turn of the century, the family had amassed over 41 palaces of a magnitude and elegance that rivaled even the wealthiest royal families. By 1825-26, N. M. Rothschild & Sons’ financial power in the City of London had grown to the point where the bank was able to provide the Bank of England with enough currency to escape a liquidity crisis. The bank provided financing for the British government’s acquisition of Egypt’s investment in the Suez Canal in 1875.
5. The Walton Family
Samuel Moore Walton (March 29, 1918 – April 5, 1992) was an American entrepreneur and businessman best known for co-founding Walmart and Sam’s Club. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. grew to become the world’s largest business in terms of sales. Walton was once the wealthiest man in America.
Contrary to the prevalent practice of discount shop chains in the United States, Walton chose to put stores in smaller towns rather than major cities. He placed a premium on logistics, emphasizing the need for having stores within a day’s drive of Walmart’s regional warehouses and distributing via the company’s own transportation service. Sam Walton bequeathed Walmart to his wife and children when he died. Rob Walton followed his father as chairman, while John Walton served on the board of directors until his death in a 2005 aircraft crash. Nearly 50 billion dollars in annual sales were generated by 1,735 Walmarts, 212 Sam’s Clubs, and 13 Supercenters.
Until 2005, the Walton family counted among its members five of the top 10 richest people in the United States. Sam Walton died in 1992, little than a month after being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-President George H. W. Bush.
The Walton family is the wealthiest in the United States. As of December 2014, the family controlled 50.8 percent of Walmart, one of the world’s largest businesses by revenue. The majority of the family’s fortune stems from Bud and Sam Walton’s co-founding of Walmart.
Christy Walton is one of the biggest supporters of a group called The Lincoln Project. The Lincoln Project, a recently formed anti-Trump group, released a video which was a play on Ronald Reagan’s 1984 “Morning in America” campaign ad. In response to the ad, President Donald Trump called The Lincoln Project leaders losers.
6. The Kardashian Family
The Kardashian–Jenner family is an American entertainment, reality television, fashion design, and business family. It was founded by Robert and Kris Jenner and currently includes their children Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, and Rob Kardashian, as well as their grandkids. Kendall and Kylie’s half-siblings (through Robert and his marriage to actress Linda Thompson), Brandon and Brody Jenner, are notable extended relatives. The Kardashians have been accused of celebrity for the sake of celebrity.
According to some people, the family possesses “no genuine abilities beyond fame.” On September 2, 2010, the family was given the keys to Beverly Hills, which were purposefully organized to correspond to the area’s zip code of 90210. According to Vogue, the Kardashians established themselves as a cultural force to be reckoned with in the 2010s.
Kimberly Noel Kardashian is a media personality, socialite, model, and entrepreneur. She has hundreds of millions of Twitter and Instagram followers. Kardashian founded D-A-S-H, a boutique business in Calabasas, California, in 2006. She made her Dancing with the Stars debut in 2008 and guest starred as Elle in four episodes of Beyond the Break. In 2009, she launched her own fragrance, self-titled “Kim Kardashian,” and was named the face of Fusion Beauty and the Seven Bar Foundation’s Kiss Away Poverty lip gloss campaign.
Kim was the August 2015 cover model for Vogue Spain. She was paid between 75,000 and 300,000 dollars for each social media post she made up to November 2016. She was paid 720,000 dollars for each Instagram post in 2018. In June 2019, she debuted a new shapewear collection dubbed “Kimono.”