Who came under intense criticism for proclaiming: "A billion dollars isn't worth what it used to be"?

J. Paul Getty was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1892. In 1913, he obtained a diploma in Economics and Political Science from the University of Oxford. He took over his father's businesses in 1930 and consolidated them all into The Getty Oil Company. In 1957 Forbes magazine named him "richest living American".

During the Great Depression Getty acquired Pacific Western Oil Corporation and began the acquisition of Tidewater Oil and Skelly Oil which were merged into Getty Oil.

In 1949. even though no oil had yet been found in the region, Getty negotiated a 60 year lease to a tract of barren land near the border of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Only four year later Getty's investment was producing sixteen million barrels of crude a year, which went a long way to making him the richest man in the world.

When asked for a response to a 1957 article in Fortune magazine and whether or not he was really worth a billion dollars Getty responded "You know, if you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars" and then famously added, "But remember, a billion dollars isn't worth what it used to be."

Another great Getty quote is "The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights."