intellectual accomplishments: Einstein, Tesla, Vannevar Bush, Newton, Bohr, Maxwell, Faraday, Gallileo, Newton, Dirac, Rutherford financial accomplishments: Ro

intellectual accomplishments: Einstein, Tesla, Vannevar Bush, Newton, Bohr, Maxwell, Faraday, Gallileo, Newton, Dirac, Rutherford financial accomplishments: Rockefeller, Getty, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Mellon, Walton, Kluge, Gates, Bezos, Buffett industrial accomplishments: Ford, Edison, Gould, Morgan, Page, Brin, Zuckerberg, Branson, Allen Lots of overlap on the lists, but I decided not to doubly-list individuals -- and the lists are by no means complete, I favored recent centuries. That said, Musk is tremendously successful and awe-inspiring; this pissing contest is a miserable thing to participate in -- but I still think it's important to point out that Musk isn't the only awe-inspiring success ever.