On June 6, 1976, at Sutton Palace, an old aristocratic residence 33 miles from London, Paul Getty left his $6 billion fortune behind.
He was an adventurer, a duty-breaker father, bigamer, miser, and suspected sympathizer with the Nazis. All his life, fanatical chasing money, chasing women... In terms of personality, he is by no means a noble man, but in terms of the fruits of his career, almost no one can compare. Gertie used his life and energy to the extreme, he made money madly, enjoyed it to the fullest, but did not have the slightest sense of responsibility for society, to friends, to relatives, so that although he was rich, he was very lonely.
Paul Getty was born in the United States in 1892, and his father, George Getty, was a lawyer in Minneapolis and later opened an insurance company, and lived a fairly wealthy life. Paul was the only son.
In 1903, George went to Mathersville, Oklahoma, to recover a loan, a nascent frontier town formerly inhabited by Indians. Because of the discovery of oil mines, a large number of outsiders poured in, and there were wells everywhere to extract oil, and countless oil derricks were erected between the crumbling small shacks. The town is packed with adventurers and oil merchants, as well as prostitutes, crooks, and hooligans. Oil extraction, like gold panning, is a very lucrative business, buying a piece of land, as long as you drill an oil well, you can become very rich overnight. Of course, there are also many people who are poorly run or fail to dig wells and go bankrupt.
George Gerty, a devout Christian and well-collared insurer, was involuntarily caught up in the black vortex, where he bought 1,100 acres of land for $500 and moved his family to Matersville the following year, when Paul was only 11 years old.
With good luck, George drilled six wells in two months, each producing 10,000 barrels of oil per month, and suddenly became an upstart. Paul used his own money to buy 100 shares of Minneshoma Corporation, his father's company, and became one of his father's partners. Later, he and his father had a fierce quarrel and almost parted ways. The father and son always disagreed on business. And it turns out that Paul is more adventurous and pioneering than his father.
In just 3 years, George became one of Oklahoma's largest oil merchants. By the time Paul was 14 years old, they moved again, to San Diego, California, and then to Los Angeles.
Paul was not a good student in school, his credits always did not meet the requirements, from middle school to college, I don't know how many schools he transferred. In the end, he finally obtained a diploma from oxford university in the United Kingdom. While studying in Europe, he repeatedly wrote letters to his father asking for money, complaining in letters that he was too stingy with him, and his father said that his letters were "like letters from a lawyer to a Jewish moneylender, not from an only son to a loving and generous father."
Paul then began to attack his father's business methods, criticizing him for not heeding his advice to build an oil storage depot in Oklahoma. He asked his father to bribe the Indian Council with $600 to defeat rival Mobil Oil and gain the right to exploit a leased land in New Jersey. George, on the other hand, wrote back to his son, "I'd rather keep my $600 and my honesty and reputation." "
When Paul Getty returned to the United States, he was determined to try his skills in the oil industry. His father promised to finance him to buy what he thought was promising and cheap leasehold. He goes to 30% of the profits and the rest to his father.
So Paul Getty, who was less than 22 years old, traveled alone to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to start his oil career. Of those rude tramps and gamblers, he was the only one carrying a watch — everyone else had guns. Tulsa didn't have a decent road at the time, and during the day, oil diggers trekked through ankle-deep mud; At night, I ate and slept in a makeshift, air-conditioned cabin, which smelled of sweat and alcohol. Paul had been accustomed to this environment in the oil fields since he was a child, and he could bear it.
Two years later, he drilled his first oil well on his loan. On the third day of the oil injection, he resold the land to another company, making nearly $40,000. It was his first profitable trade. As a result of this success, his father officially accepted him as a manager at the Minnehoma Company, a family business.
During World War I, U.S. oil prices nearly doubled. The Wealth of the Getty family also swelled. Paul still lives in a hotel in Tulsa with a group of oil diggers. Like the Stock Exchange in New York, bustling oil merchants gather information about oil prices and oil mines, exchanging information on leased lands. Paul worked here as a middleman on the leased land, from which he made a considerable profit and at the same time expanded his leased land.
At that time, few oil merchants recognized the practical value of geology in oil extraction, and they only relied on their own experience and feelings to think that where there was oil, they would drill wells wherever there was oil, with a certain degree of blindness. Paul, unlike those, heeded the geologists' advice and shifted his gaze from the competitive region to the red soil belt to the north and west of the Cushing field. Soon after, he discovered the oil fields of Garber and Billings there. Just 5 months later, he found that his assets had reached $1 million.
Paul became a millionaire at the age of 24, and he was full of ambition, thinking that this life was enough, so he decided to "retire". He wants to leave his work behind, have fun, and enjoy himself. He returned to his home in California, indulged in alcohol all day, fooled around with girls, caused a storm in the city, and was almost taken to court. As a result, he gained a bad reputation as a "young idler" and brought shame to his parents.
After two years of such foolishness, even he himself felt that nothing had brought only boredom, uneasiness and emptiness, and he decided to return to the oil fields.
In late 1921, the Getty family bought a mountainous area near Santa Fe Springs for $693, a decisive move. By 1923, the annual oil production on this land reached more than 70 million barrels, and in the next 15 years, it created a value of 6.4 million US dollars. Paul thought it was his credit, claiming that if he hadn't chosen the plot of land, their family would have found nothing in the 20s.
George Sr. differed greatly from his son in terms of business styles, personalities, and business values, and George's honesty was well known in Southern California; Paul, on the other hand, was a "tall, thin, sharp-eyed, rugged young man" who was only interested in money. Sometimes, he would quietly go to the oil well under his father's jurisdiction in an attempt to forcibly take the drilling equipment to him. George would remind his men, I told you not to let this get here, and not to let him take anything! But sometimes he'll be soft-hearted, "Hey, he's my only son, and if he wants to take it, let him take it." "
When George Sr. died of illness in 1930, he left his wife Sarah with an inheritance of $10 million and gave control of the estate to the designated executor and his deputy; Paul received only $500,000 in inheritance. This was undoubtedly a heavy blow to Paul Getty, who knew that his father did not trust him at all, believing that he was ambitious and would lose the family property. Nominally, he is the chairman of the company, but in reality, the decision is in the hands of others. By "others, he meant his mother, Sarah, and the people around her who were strategizing. From then on, his mother became a major obstacle to the exercise of his power.
In the 1930s, the U.S. economy experienced a Great Depression and the stock market collapsed. While most investors and businessmen retreated and ducked, Gertie bucked the tide, concluding that this was an opportunity for him to unleash his talents and create a large oil conglomerate. By then, shares of many oil companies had fallen to a fraction of the original price, and stock holders continued to sell. Getty has his eye on two California oil companies, the Mexican Riviera United Petroleum Company and the Pacific Occidental Petroleum Company, which own valuable land in the Kettleman Hills field. Gertie's mother, Sarah, opposed the purchase of shares, bypassed her mother and tried to persuade the company's directors to buy $3 million in shares with a loan.
However, the stock price continued to fall, and soon after he bought them, the par value of the shares lost $1 million. Both the directors and the oilers were furious, believing that his mother's view was correct. But Getty remains steadfast in continuing to buy stocks with her own money, as Pacific Occidental's stock has fallen from $17 a share earlier to $3, almost below its par value. Getty believes that the depression is temporary and will recover sooner or later. In this regard, he is indeed smarter than the average investor. But he spent almost every penny that belonged to him, and if that failed, he would be penniless and in debt.
By the end of 1931, Getty had finally acquired a majority stake in Pacific Occidental, which also meant he already had control of the company. But he was still not satisfied, and his eyes were fixed on the United Petroleum Company on the seashore. The company is the ninth-largest oil company in the United States, and even in the face of this Great Depression, its annual net income is as high as $5 million, almost equivalent to the entire revenue of George Getty's company. And in the wind-drenched stock market, its stock price fell about 90 percent to less than $3 per share. Getty did the math that the entire stake in the company was worth $14.5 million. What a bargain! He couldn't give up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
To get the money, he sold a valuable oil-producing area of George Getty to Shell Oil for $4.5 million. He then began quietly buying 15,100 shares of The Coastal Oil at $2.50 a share.
In order to further his plan, the ambitious Gerty felt compelled to acquire most of the shares in the company owned by his mother, so that he could take full control of his own company and borrow money at will in order to buy more shares of the United Petroleum Company on the Seashore. This made his relationship with his mother more and more tense, and there was constant friction and struggle between mother and son. The struggle continued until Christmas 1933, when Sarah finally gave in to his son, promising to sell her stake to Getty for $4.5 million, but not in cash, but with interest-bearing promissory notes. That is, the money Gertie owes her is subject to interest, and the loan must be repaid within a limited time.
Getty agreed without hesitation. In doing so, his mother went from being the company's largest shareholder to Gettys' largest creditor.
When Gerty took control of the family's finances, his main rival was no longer his mother, but the vast Mobil Oil Company, which controlled the United Oil Company on the Seashore, and he had to combine the gambler's skills with meticulous planning. Gertie clearly has this quality.
Mobil Oil and its partners are well aware of the situation in the stock market and have taken a series of measures to prevent a takeover. But Getty also had a corresponding countermeasure, and after several repeated battles, he spent two years to finally acquire a 40% stake in a holding company under the United Petroleum Company of the Seaside and successfully entered the board of directors of the United Petroleum Company of the Seaside.
In 1936, the United States began to struggle from the worst economic crisis in history, showing signs of recovery, and oil stock prices gradually recovered. The price of the shares that Getty bought four years ago for $2.50 a share has now risen to $20 a share, and the stock bought in 1935 for $9.6 a share has more than doubled. By the end of 1936, the shares of the United Oil Company had risen to $29.50 a share. As a result, the Wealth of the Getty Family suddenly increased several times, and even the mother, who had always opposed the purchase of stocks, was stunned.
Over the next 10 years, Getty continued to expand his shareholding, and by the early 1950s, all but one of the other directors on the board of The United Oil Company was created under Getty's shares, which meant that Getty had complete control of the company by then.
During World War II, Gertie roamed Europe, came into contact with the German fascist elite, and openly expressed his admiration for Hitler and boasted of his friendship with the Nazi Fuehrer, so he was monitored by the FBI. Officials suspected him of secretly trading with the Germans and providing them with oil, and FBI Director Hoover personally proposed that Gerty be detained as a potential enemy, but later changed his mind because the evidence was insufficient.
After the war, the U.S. economy boomed rapidly, the demand for gasoline increased sharply, and the domestic crude oil could no longer meet the needs of the market, and American oil merchants began to seek development in the Foreign Country, mainly to the Middle East. But at that time, the Middle East was controlled by seven large companies, including BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Mobil Oil of New Jersey and Gulf Oil, and it was difficult to break in.
No one would have imagined that Gertie would end up taking a fancy to a barren land between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, a neutral zone under the control of two countries, a vast desert that was uninhabited. Gertie's oil geologists flew planes to observe the topography from the air and concluded that there was oil buried beneath it. After negotiations, Gerty was granted a 60-year oil concession, but he had to meet the rather harsh conditions set by Saudi Arabia and take great risks. Many in the U.S. oil industry have publicly pointed out that Gertie is doomed to bankruptcy by doing so, and they believe that there is no oil there.
Getty was so confident that he would first pay the King of Saudi Arabia $9.5 million in cash to pay the salaries of the King's civilian staff. In addition, even without oil, he pays the Saudis $1 million a year. And what surprised the oil community most was that he promised to pay the Saudis a mining tax of up to 55 cents per barrel of oil produced, which is a double and a half more than the 22 cents per barrel that other oil companies pay Kuwait. He dared to do so because he thought it would be cheap to extract oil in Saudi Arabia, and with an eye on the rising price of oil, he concluded that the land would make a lot of money in the long run.
In four years, Getty has invested $40 million, but only produced a small amount of inferior oil. This oil is difficult to refine and has little commercial value. The prophecies of the oil industry seem to have been verified, and even Getty himself is showing restlessness. In early 1951, he told the King of Saudi Arabia: "Our future is uncertain, although we believe that the work of the neutral zone is proceeding in the most perfect way, and if there is oil in this area, it can be found through these jobs." "By this time Gertie was nearly 60 years old. His diary also shows that he is very dissatisfied with his business skills and inferiority, saying that he does not know why he is still active in the business world, but at the same time he expressed his ambition not to give up on becoming the richest person in the United States.
After 4 years of constant setbacks, success came unexpectedly. On February 10, 1953, a sixth well drilled on a raised plateau discovered a layer of oil sands at 3,482 feet above the surface, and then began to inject oil outward. The discovery completely reversed Gertie's fate, and the American "Happiness" magazine called the discovery "great and historic."
High-yield wells were punched out one by one, and within a month, Getty's stock had risen sharply from $23.75 to $47.75, and Getty's wealth had doubled again. He personally believes that if a one-time short sale or liquidation is made, it is possible for his shares to reach $85 per share.
Petroleum geologists conservatively estimate that getty's neutral zone oil reserves more than 1.3 trillion barrels.
To this end, Getty built and purchased refineries, mastered the processing and production of huge amounts of crude oil on his own, and had his refineries in Wilmington, San Francisco, Geita in Italy and Denmark. From 1954 onwards, Getty began building his fleet of supertankers with a total tonnage of 1 million tons, of which the tonnage of giant supertankers was more than 70,000 tons. In Los Angeles, Tulsa and New York, he built new office buildings worth more than $40 million at an astonishing rate.
By 1957, Getty's assets had exceeded $1 billion. That year, when Destiny magazine listed America's richest men, Getty topped the list.
Getty was married 5 times in his life and had 4 sons, but he never fulfilled his duties as husband and father. His marriage to each of his wives was short-lived, and he married another woman even before he had gone through the divorce procedures with the previous wife. He never cared about his son, and one child fell seriously ill shortly after his birth until his death, and Gerty never visited him once. The death of his son and father is not as sad as the death of his beloved dog. As a result, his sons grew up with no affection for him, and although they and their mother were financially supported by Getty, their cold, selfish, miserly father never saw them as members of his oil empire, fearing that the sons would take away his property and weaken his absolute control.
To get rid of the entanglement of wives and sons. Also in order to take care of the middle Eastern industry, Getty moved to Western Europe from the age of 60, living an almost wandering life, not because of poverty, but for pleasure. He often traveled with two or three women, and was generous in spending money for them. He claimed to leave an inheritance for his 100 lovers, so he kept amending his will as many as 25 times.
When his reputation as America's richest man spread, his photographs were published in newspapers and magazines in large numbers. At this time, he can no longer go to "wandering" in anonymity, because it is too dangerous, and he may be kidnapped at any time, and safety has become the most important. While denying how much property he had, and considering that there should be a safer and less conspicuous residence, he bought Sutton Palace, the palace of the british run-down nobility, for a huge sum of money near London. He installed iron bars on every window of the 11th-century palace and kept a dozen trained, ferocious Alsatian dogs. Armed guards guarded the private fort day and night.
Although Gertie was very wealthy, he never gave even a penny of his money to society. Another oil king, Rockefeller Jr., was completely different from him, generously donating to social welfare and politicians, and repeatedly advising Gertie to also take out money to do something good. Getty was always noncommittal and was truly a dime-tall iron rooster.
However, in the end, he could not refuse the call of the god of death and left empty-handed. Just a year before his death, the British government passed a statute requiring wealthy foreign individuals living in Britain for a certain number of years to pay inheritance taxes. Gertie died at the end of his 16th stay in England, so he was lucky enough to evade the Inheritance Tax in England.
After Getty's death, he left a trail of disappointment and anger on many of the women associated with him who believed that Getty had deceived each and every one of them. In his last will, he did not give them as much as they had originally promised, and some of them were even insulting.
When Getty's body took off from Heathrow airport in a TWA jet and was transported back to his native California, he left another man financially disappointed: The money promised to the pastor of St. Mark's Church had not been delivered. Gertie's memorial service became free.