who inherited the getty fortune who inherited the getty fortune

Illustration by Cristiana Couceiro; Source photographs from Getty, Thank you for waking me up from the witchs curse! A lucky Aussie has woken up $40m richer after drawing the winning Powerball ticket. I dont know why I continue to be active in business, he wrote in his diary in 1952, four decades after he first tried to retire. Nicolette told me, This Nevada trust arrangement was made before I became a trustee or was included in the trust or Getty matters at all. She went on, Ill admit that for a time I did consider the option of moving out of California in order to avoid the tax, because it is quite substantial. But, she said, she abandoned the idea, and expects to pay about $30 million in taxes on her share of the trust. When her father died, Nancy Walton Laurie inherited a whopping $4.3 billion, with $70 million in dividends alone. life is cruel sometimes . The F.T.B., like many agencies, has a finite capacity for complex cases, especially when faced with a well-resourced litigant. In 2015, the Gettys had an estimated net worth of $5.4 billion (3.7 billion), according to Forbes, and were listed as the No. We here at Celebrity Net Worth pay a fee every month to use Getty photosin our articles (as does just about every other site on the Internet). 'My father was awesome- coolest man to ever land on this planet and I will forever be the proudest daughter,' she wrote. I asked what her parents made of that. But you cannot get where you want to be without being good at it. To understand the quietest corners of the tax-avoidance world, I called Bob Lord, a lawyer in Arizona whose tax practice once helped clients find loopholes. But she stands to inherit billions -- yes, billions -- when her father passes away. Ivy spoke of how 'proud' she was to be the only 'consistent' woman in her father's life as she reflected on his womanizing ways. He later paid for Newsom's first wedding and went on to invest in 10 of . John Paul Getty's son Mark has a lot of passion towards photography and collecting art. Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP In a statement, he said that Sonns firing had been non-retaliatory and warranted, and that the suit was a sad example of overreaching by someone now seeking to take advantage of a position of trust.. Im one who thinks the tax burden needs to be higher on the wealthy such as myself and my family, she said. Robert Leberman, the administrator of the trust, and one of the defendants in Sonns suit, denied her allegations against the family. Like, Im not going to do a confessional.. 'I don't think there was a single girlfriend he had that I wasn't a complete b***h to. She elaborated on the idea in a message days later, arguing that those of us living in [California] at the time of dads death would then make plans to move out of state for 1-2 years. (In theory, relocating could allow an heir to escape tens of millions of dollars in Californias throwback tax, which vanishes if you move away for long enough. Am I being selfish right now? Four times a year, Kendalle and Sarah received a dense book of several hundred pages, detailing investment decisions. He shocked the world by refusing to pay his grandsons ransom after he was kidnapped in 1973 in Italy. He loved and admired her because she was the only woman who would stand up to him. Im looking to create a smaller atelier in Milan and kind of expand the brand. The 52-year-old was found unresponsive in a hotel room last year, with his death coming months after his mum and six years after his brother. In 2018, the LA Times reported that he had bought a $3.9million Hollywood Hills home in California. I dont think were being in integrity re: the spirit of the law. She added, Im compelled to tell you the truth here, even though its an ugly shitshow and not of either of our makings., Kendalle replied with one word: Zoinks.. handbook, which lists the thresholds that agents use to determine if a discount is suspiciously large. I think theres a place for it, but not on the Getty girl.. Property taxes were due only if the owner of a property died, so, if you kept playing hot potato with the deed, effectively the owner never died. In 1682, to curb gaming of the law, Englands Lord Nottingham established a rule against perpetuities, which set the maximum length of a trust at the life span of the beneficiary plus twenty-one years. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for MTV), Each of Augusts ultra-feminine in the traditional sense of the word designs carry an element of sexy with them. They keep changing the name, she said. He saw no reason why I should exert myself further to make more, he wrote, in a memoir called My Life and Fortunes. He would focus instead on enjoying myself, and in that pursuit he acquired Hollywood friends, such as Charlie Chaplin and Gloria Swanson, and abundant hangers-on. Suddenly, a New York cop remembered a long-ago murder. In the nineteen-nineties, conservatives, pressing to eliminate the estate tax, condemned it as a death tax, and insisted that it imperilled family farms. The most coveted are GRATs, or grantor-retained annuity trusts. Ivy Getty, John's 25-year-old daughter, shared a moving tribute on social media over the weekend, coupled with a number of photos where she is pictured with her father. She complained to Kendalle and Sarah, who agreed to pay her a hefty bonus when the trust fund opened, a percentage that she calculated would come to about $4 million. John Gilbert Getty, 52, heir to billionaire oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, passed away on Friday in a hotel room in San Antonio, Texas, John Gilbert Getty was the heir to the family fortune which goes back to oil tycoon J. Paul Getty (pictured left) and is estimated to be worth more than $5billion. She also spoke of how 'proud' she was to be the only 'consistent' woman in her father's life as she reflected on her his womanizing ways. The 52-year-old was found dead in a hotel in San Antonio, Texas on November 20. The family fortune began in 1903, when a couple of flinty, frugal Minnesotans named George and Sarah Getty struck oil in Oklahoma. Trusts proved immensely popular. Given that Getty was the richest man in the world at the time, this proposal has an undeniable allure. So how, exactly, do the well-to-do find a way around taxes? A century ago, American law handled the rare pleasure of a giant inheritance with suspicion. And, in normal quantities, it narrows inequality, by helping low-income families pay for homes and education. And offers have been coming in. Most of Old Pauls personal estatehis art, property, landwas insulated from taxes almost entirely, thanks to a final gesture to keep the money out of the governments hands: he bequeathed it to a museum trust that would carry on his name forever. That barren desert country was called Saudi Arabia. A new era of strength competitions is testing the limits of the human body. According to his will, Getty bequeathed $1.2 billion to his charitable trust, the Getty Foundation, to be used as an endowment for the arts. People just think that I have, like, whatever. Ivy Love is John Gilbert Getty's daughter and is known as an artist and model. In the weeks before John Wayne Gacys scheduled execution, he was far from reconciled to his fate. he asks, with an uncomfortable blend of mischief and monstrousness. It taints everything., Marlena Sonn thought that she could help the Getty sisters expunge that taint, she told me one morning in November. That term limit endured for centuries, not only in England but eventually in the United States, where a resistance to inherited nobility was among the founding ideals. People who inherited unbelievable fortunes Share the love Most Popular Features How Michael Jackson's kids make and spend their fortunes Features From Rockefellers to Rothschilds: how five old-money dynasties live today Investing and pensions Tax relief, investing, State Pension: the biggest pension myths John Gilbert Getty was found unresponsive at a hotel in San Antonio, Texas, just months after the death of his mom and nearly six years after the death of his brother. THE Getty family is one of America's richest families thanks to their involvement with the oil industry. John Gilbert Getty, a grandson of billionaire oil tycoon J. Paul Getty and heir to the estimated $5billion family fortune, has died at the age of 52 in the latest in a long line of tragedies to befall the family. That's because John Paul Getty III was no average teenager: he was the heir to the massive Getty fortune and belonged to one of the richest families in the world. Our relationship was very much like mother-daughter, because my mother wasnt very present in my life, she said. He wanted to marry her, but she told him she was not prepared to be trampled on like this other wives," Kitson's ex-husband, Patrick de Laszlo, told the Times. Family offices, which have roots in nineteenth-century operations that served JohnD. Rockefeller and a handful of his peers, have proliferated in the past two decades, to at least ten thousand worldwide. J. Paul Getty was incredibly well-educated and fluent in French, German and Italian, as well as conversational in Spanish, Greek, Arabic and Russian. Gould School of Law, said, Tax, which is supposed to be a cure, is in fact one of the problems. Mark Brown // Getty Images . "Love you so much Dad.life is cruel sometimes. By the end of the year, Kendalle had fired Sonn, too. At 65, Getty was at the apex of his wealth and power, owning 80 per cent of a global oil empire. She had started at a base salary of $180,000, along with her fees as an investment adviser, and though her salary eventually more than doubled, she discovered that some other suppliers of advisory services to Getty trusts had collected at least $1 million a year. When J. Paul died in 1976, he was believed to be the wealthiest person on the planet with a net worth of $2-4 billion. Out of J. Paul's five children, John Paul Getty Jr. (1932-2003) is one of the most well known. 2023 Cond Nast. In 1973, when he was only 16-years-old, he was kidnapped while living in Rome by the 'Ndrangheta and held for a $17 million ransom. The trade was so profitable that their son, J.Paul Getty, became a millionaire by the age of twenty-threeat which point he announced his retirement. In a black-and-white dress and chunky glasses, with salt-and-pepper hair falling to her shoulders, she betrayed little sign of the erstwhile punk and activist. Secretly, he also fathered three daughters in Los Angeles during an extramarital affair. JAN MOIR: Goodbye Ken Bruce, the world always seemed safer with you on the airwaves, Abstaining from masturbating RAISES risk of anxiety and depression, study warns, MILLIONS of migrants will come to Britain if uncapped 'safe and legal routes' are introduced, government is warned. The cash-tight teenager had previously toyed with the idea of staging a kidnapping to extract funds from his rich grandfather so when a ransom note was received for $17million (11.9million), some family members thought it a ploy. February 27, 2023. It went from socially responsible investing to E.S.G.environmental, social, and governance. He will be deeply missed.". In 1999, their mother asked a court to recognize them as legal descendants. The financial upside bordered on the supernatural. Her father is a successful Danish architect and her mother is a film producer. He studied at both Berkeley and the University of Oxford before turning his eyes to the family business. Getty Jr, later known as Sir Paul Getty after receiving an honorary knighthood in Britain, was a philanthropist and cricket fan who died in 2003. Back in 2003, a copy sold on eBay for $3550. Other ideas have received less attention. He took $2.2 million out of his son's will and considered the remaining $800,000 a loan that would be repaid at 4% interest. John Gilbert Getty, heir to a $US5 billion ($A6.5 billion) oil fortune, died from heart and lung disease after an accidental fentanyl overdose, a post mortem has revealed. His spokesman, Richard Dougherty, identified the concern: Every slob in the street thinks that if he hits the lottery big, he may be able to leave half a million to his family.. The benefits of the GRAT are obvious, Handler, the tax lawyer, told me: its cheap, simple, and easy to repeat. He installed a pay phone at Sutton Place, his seventy-two-room mansion in the English countryside, to avoid paying for guests long-distance calls. Caroline, 55, inherited the estate of her late mother, Jackie Kennedy, which included a family estate on Martha's Vineyard. They divorced soon after Timothy's death, but Teddy lived until 2017 when she died aged 103. A dynasty, which story about the 1973 kidnapping of John Paul Getty III triggered the creation of Ridley Scotts. In 2000, the I.R.S. Pol, a Dutch actress and 'Bohemian beauty' with her own jet-setting background, married J. Paul Getty Jr in 1966 but was estranged from him by the time of their death. He would have presumably been heir to some of his father's $2 billion. By the onset of the pandemic, in 2020, Kendalle and Sarah had resettled in California, and though Sonn had prospered by facilitating their juggling of geography, she now concluded that the tax strategy was becoming untenable. John Gilbert Getty is pictured in a photo from his daughter's Instagram page. When the Pleiades Trust opens, each of the sisters can expect to receive at least $300 million, minus whatever taxes their office does not succeed in avoiding. Kendalle soon transferred the rest of her assets to Sonn, and introduced her to one of her sisters, AlexandraS. Getty. Guarding the capitalthe corpus, as its known in the businessputs you in contact with a familys most closely held secrets. In 1983, South Dakota became the first U.S. state to abolish the ancient rule against perpetuities, clearing the way for what became known as dynasty trusts, which can shield assets from inheritance taxes for centuries. She was born in Queens, to parents from South Korea, who she says were determined to see her fulfill the American Dreamgo to Ivy League schools and become a doctor or a lawyer. As a student at Barnard College, she was drawn to the punk and goth scenes and to progressive politics. By Evan. People hated the idea. Gordon cut his daughters in on the Getty fortune using a trust fundin essence, an imaginary legal lockbox that can shelter assets from taxes, creditors, and ex-spouses. Getty was worth $1.2 billion dollars, which, adjusted to today's inflation, translates to $9 billion. His brother, Andrew, predeceased John. The change allowed the branches of the family to each oversee their own share of the trust. This includes his mother Ariadne, who acts as the company CEO. WilliamK. Vanderbilt, a descendant of Cornelius, observed, evidently from experience, that inherited wealth was as certain a death to ambition as cocaine is to morality.. ABDUCTION DRAMA: J. Paul Getty III, the grandson of the family patriarch, was sensationally kidnapped in Rome in 1973, aged 16. McCaffery, of U.S.C., calls it buy, borrow, die.. Andrew Getty, the heir who was found dead last night, was living in a mansion that is currently valued at around $4 million. Between 1983 and 2020, the net worth of the Kochs, who prospered in fossil fuels and became right-wing mega-donors, grew twenty-five-fold, from $3.9 billion to $100 billion. If Jeff Bezos died tomorrow, a hundred billion dollars of gains on his Amazon stock would go untaxed. In private moments, even Old Paul Getty marvelled at his drive to accumulate. And I think that some of what were experiencing is that window has been closing for the last ten or twenty years., But, despite the dispute, Sonn blamed her former clients less than their enablers in finance and politics. As for Getty's 26 descendants: They spent the next long while arguing vehemently about the, The other living son, Ronald Getty, was in a different situation than his brothers. He sure did. Ivy shares her dad's love of art and music. They tend to have no public presenceGordon Gettys family office is known, inconspicuously, as Vallejo Investmentsbut by some estimates they control about six trillion dollars in assets, a larger sum than is managed by all the worlds hedge funds. That decision was overturned in 1985 following a lawsuit brought up by Gordon's nieces, who accused him of violating the trust's terms. I have not one, but two guardian angels watching over me now.". Because its a loan, youll owe no taxes on the cash. As it moved through the courts, Sonns complaint, which contained portions of family e-mails and texts, marked the rarest of indiscretions from a financier who serves the super-rich. Sonn and Kendalle met for dinner at a restaurant in Williamsburg and discussed her situation. Others suggest stronger financial incentives for whistle-blowers. One of the lawyers likened it to an elaborate treaty negotiation among warring nations.. Victoria inherited her 8% stake in the company when her father Forrest Mars Jr. passed away in 2016. How Harry's chat with guru who compared Hamas terrorists to Jews who battled the Nazis has appalled Rabbis: What DOES Duke know about man who defended Corbyn, called for ALL drugs to be legal and will want intimate detail of his upbringing? However, he is eventually thought to have coughed up around $3million after the kidnappers cut off the teenager's ear and threatened to return him piece by piece. For Sarah, she was in Japan, then she was in New York, then shes in California. They divorced soon after Timothy's death, but Teddy lived until 2017 when she died aged 103. By 1915 J. Paul had made his first million. Season two has anothe, ITVX and Prime Video must have heard us complaining about the need for more nuanced Black representation in Hollywood, because their buzzy new series Riche, Warning: The following contains graphic details of sexual assault which some readers may find upsetting. Jean Paul Getty was born on December 15, 1892 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. February 27, 2023 By scottish gaelic translator By scottish gaelic translator John Gilbert Getty was due to inherit the family fortune before his sudden death on November 20, 2020, following complications from an accidental drug overdose. Getty eventually relented and paid a $3million ransom. Sonn called her babe, and they would do things for fun, not just for work, Sarah said. In 1976, about 139,000 American households were eligible for the estate tax; by 2020, it had been punctured by so many exemptions that only 1,275 households nationwide had to pay. . Other than the very liberal, highly educated, intellectual lite, they dont feel guilty at all. Managers like to hail the forethought of first-generation wealth creators and patriarchs and matriarchs. But the industrys most important concept involves no venture at all; it is simply endurance. Their relationship flourished. I played a lot of golf as a kid, he said. For one thing, she said, her employers had refused to contribute to her health insurance or her payroll taxes, to avoid the appearance of operating in New York, where she lived. Across the family fortune, she said, thats a lot of tax on billions of dollars. While their grandfather had sought to duck taxes by claiming California residency, Sonn was helping the granddaughters attempt that maneuver in reverse. SECOND FAMILY:Gordon Getty had his own brush with scandal in 1999 when the father of four sons with his wife, Ann, acknowledged he had a second family in Los Angeles that included three daughters. Other members of the Getty family also posted their condolences underneath Ivy's posts. In 1904 George embarked on a career in the oil industry, and within two years his Minnehoma Oil Company was a success. Her Majesty leaves behind over $500 million in personal assets. (Except for the royal corgis; those will go to Prince Andrew .) One particular ritual was sacrosanct: four times a year, to maintain the claim that their trust was not run from California, they boarded jets to some locale beyond the state border, before casting their official votes on investment decisions. For Kendalle, she was back and forth between L.A. and New York, and also travelling. Sheldon Adelson, the late casino owner, sometimes had at least ten at once; in one three-year period, according to Bloomberg, he used them to escape $2.8 billion in taxes. Once a year, it would be in Nevada, usually in Las Vegas, because none of the family members wanted to go to Reno. Buried in the details of California law was a statute that said that, as long as they could make the case that they never did the major portion of their business in California, they might each be able to dodge tens of millions of dollars in taxes on the inheritance. Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker. Within fifty years, the trust had grown a thousandfold, to four billion dollars. To avoid transferring assets to their wives, since women were restricted from owning land, they entrusted control temporarily to male friends and relatives. He also donated he vast personal collection of priceless art, valued at more than $600 million at the time of his death, to his future museums. In ancient Greece, the Spartans developed rules that consolidated property into a narrow class of heirs, while the growing population of people left behind were reclassified as hypomeionesinferiors. But the mystery winner is yet to claim the reward. One of her primary duties was monitoring the important matter of location. Sonn assisted Kendalle and Sarah as they navigated the complications of their new wealth. Like Kitson, Teissler was Getty's lover. After the tragic news of her father's death, the 26-year-old paid a touching tribute to him on social media, writing: "My father was awesome- coolest man to ever land on this planet and I will forever be the proudest daughter. In January, 2021, Sarah fired her from ASG Investments, but she offered to work out a severance package, signing off, I love you. Sonn asked for a payout of about $2.5 million plus a years salary. Image: Getty Images) By. The financial-services industry lives between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, she said. Capital keeps getting more and more unequal, until theres a crash., But Tom Handler, a Chicago tax lawyer who specializes in ultra-wealthy clients, told me that the political pressure on the one per cent has only generated more business for him and his peers. Known as Sarah, she split her time between Los Angeles, New York, and Japan, and identified herself on social media as an artist, webtoon creator, boxer, runner, and vegan. Sarah hired Sonn, and within a year the sisters asked her to help run their trust fund, too. woman in line to inherit part of an iconic American fortune. I now dont trust you in any regard, she wrote. That's same as $12-17 billion today after you adjust for inflation. In 1953, the gamble paid off ENORMOUSLY. A notoriously demanding character, J. Paul Getty was married - and divorced - five times and had five sons. The financial triumph of such clans helps explain how the imbalance of wealth in the United States has risen to levels unseen in a century. As her duties expanded, Sonn assisted Sarah with insurance and real estate. She accompanied the post with a thread of heartwarming snaps of her and her late dad. Sonn said that she was also enlisted in maintaining the appearance that Kendalle and Sarah neither resided nor transacted trust business in California, in order to minimize their exposure to state income tax, which ranges up to thirteen per cent. The coined Getty girl often written as a hashtag across Augusts Instagram business profile is a reference to the woman wearing the Getty heirs designs. And while her grandfather managed to stay relatively under the radar, Laurie is not the same. A prominent art collector, he bequeathed much of his personal fortune to the Getty Museum with its sprawling campus on a Los Angeles mountaintop. If your money comes from complex investments, it is easier to avoid taxes than if your employer regularly reports your income to the Internal Revenue Service. Im very against military and guns and weapons, and very pro-planet. Like many others I spoke to while reporting on Sonns dispute with the Gettys, Sarah described a feeling of captivity to industries and laws that enriched her but tried her conscience. For the moment, restoring real taxes on what we leave behind could be more politically viable than levying a wealth tax. We can live in California for now if we want to, without penalty, as long as we move out of state for a year before we are ready to access the trust principal, she wrote, in an e-mail to her siblings and others. Jean Paul Getty Sr. (/ t i /; December 15, 1892 - June 6, 1976) was an American-born British petroleum industrialist who founded the Getty Oil Company in 1942 and was the patriarch of the Getty family. When it comes to taxes, there have always been advantages in certain lines of work. A 46-year-old man died at California's Heavenly Mountain Resort following a serious incident on the mountain, according to resort officials. John Gilbert Gettywas the heir to the $5billion Getty fortune - and father to Ivy Love Getty. I thought we could reform it.. Grant Halverson/Getty Images Jerry Richardson, the Carolina Panthers founder and for years one of the NFL's most influential owners until a scandal forced him to sell the team, has died. The late U.S. senator Carl Levin, a critic of finance abuses, accused the industry of deflecting attention with MEGOsMy Eyes Glaze Over schemes.) He invited twelve hundred people to a mansion-warming party at Sutton Place and declared it a business expense. In subsequent years, Getty III began using drugs including cocaine and heroin and in 1981 suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed and nearly blind. I have not one, but two guardian angels watching over me now.. Andrew's father is multi-billionaire philanthropist Gordon Getty. Instead of allowing money to cascade through generations, like a champagne tower, we siphoned off some of the flow through taxes on estates, gifts, and capital gains. He held all the chords totally different that anyone else because he taught himself.'. John was also the cousin of tragic heir J. Paul Getty III, who was sensationally kidnapped for ransom as a teenager in 1973 and who later suffered a debilitating stroke and died aged 54 nine years ago. His brother, Andrew, predeceased John. Sonn, whether or not she obtains the rest of her payout, will have made millions of dollars from her association with the Gettys. She refused to marry him. Three of those children were fathered in secret through an affair that Gordon had with a woman namedCynthia Beck. John Gilbert was the grandson of tycoon J. Paul Getty and son to Gordon Getty. You didnt see those girls taking out the trash in their sweatpants and they werent wearing sneakers. Joan Didion once described it as a palpable contract between the very rich and the people who distrust them least., But this kind of prominence should not be mistaken for happiness. The campaign succeeded spectacularly. Over the years, he and Ann, a publisher and a decorator, expanded their living space, buying the house next door (to make room for his work at the piano) and then the house next door to that. Ad Choices. Hilton was born in New York City and is married to one of the heirs to the Rothschild fortune, James Rothschild. Ultimately, Old Paul consented to pay $2.2 million of the requested sumthe maximum, according to his biographer John Pearson, that advisers had told him was tax deductible. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Today, the elder Getty might be most famous for being incredibly cheap. I watched the hits: Hannah Montana, The Cheetah Girls, Wizards of Waverly Place. And yet, in recent times, the fortunes of many prominent American clans have soared. After Getty's death, Gordon Getty, the fourth son, was named the sole trustee of the family fortune. They hosted charity events, opera stars, and fund-raisers for politicians, including Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom. Closing the loopholes is not rocket science, Lord, the Arizona lawyer, said. Sonn and Kendalle met for dinner at a restaurant in . Gordon Getty, whose net worth was estimated at $2.1 billion by Forbes, took Gavin along on trips when he was a child. He's Gerard Louis-Dreyfus, and the family fortune is nearly $3 billion in total. He grew the business rapidly, expanding his familys oil business into the Middle East with spectacular success. Mark is the son of J. Paul Getty Jr. the third child of J. Paul Getty. Nevada set its limit at three hundred and sixty-five years, Alaska at a thousand. Astroworld 2021 update - Calls for Travis Scott to be axed from Coachella as he's replaced by Post Malone at Day N Vegas, Grandfather gives away his old iPad and leaves his grandkids in stitches when they see his camera roll. Ponytailed Mr Crow inherited a fortune from his dad's firm and Fergie also flew to his . The one who: Passed away this week as heir to the Getty fortune Background: John was heir to the $5 billion Getty fortune and was believed to have been living in LA and friends with US. THE heir to the $5 billion Getty fortune has died aged 52 in yet another tragedy for the dynasty. Even compared with other wealthy skinflints, Paul was strikingly parsimonious. So, did Getty leave some of his fortune to his mistresses, as he proposed at the beginning of Trust? The legal survival of a multimillion-dollar tax dodge can hinge on minutiae. Edward McCaffery, a tax professor at the U.S.C. The lawyer was cagey about specifics, but eventually identified the prospect as KendalleP. Getty, a granddaughter of the oil tycoon J.Paul Getty. When the story broke, Gordon was vacationing with his wife on a friends yacht in the Mediterranean; he released a statement acknowledging that he was the girls father, and proclaimed, I love them very much.. On his deathbed, he refused to leave son J. Paul in sole charge of their company. He took $9.5 million of his own money (roughly $100 million today) and purchased a 60-year exclusive lease to search for oil in a barren desert country that no western person had ever heard of.