While ludicrous fortunes may seem to distance the super-rich from the common man, we are all human and at the mercy of our mortal coils. All the money in the world can’t protect anyone from freak accidents, the desire to take one’s own life, or other unexpected manners of death. Either way, exorbitant levels of wealth often manifest resentment and anger from members of the general public. When the incredibly wealthy die in tragic circumstances, it results in mixed feelings ranging from schadenfreude and sadness to morbid fascination.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the most rich people that die in tragic circumstances happen by way of helicopter accidents. Some died due to automobile accidents at high speeds. Others, however, find themselves under scrutiny from regulatory bodies and either coincidentally die right after or get ahead of the accusations by taking their own life. No matter how much money you have, as the saying goes, you can’t take it with you. In this article, we will explore the lives and deaths of 14 super-rich people who met tragic ends.
To compile a list of the super-rich who met tragic ends, 24/7 Tempo consulted a range of news, business, and lifestyle publications including Forbes Magazine, Grunge.com, and New York Magazine. From there, we selected ultra-wealthy people who died in tragic ways. After that, we confirmed aspects of each person’s biography and death using sites like Reuters.com and Britannica.
Otto Beisheim
When World War II broke out, Otto Beisheim joined the Waffen-SS. After that, he joined the fight on the eastern front as part of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte. After incurring severe wounds, Beisheim spent the rest of the war in military hospitals before being taken as a prisoner of war by the British. Once the war ended, he joined the business world, working a series of jobs before co-founding Metro in 1964, Germany’s first cash-and-carry retailer.
This little venture turned Beisheim into one of the richest men in Germany, if not, Europe. By 2010, estimates put his net worth at $3.6 billion. An intensely private man, Beisheim avoided the public eye and eschewed interviews. He would even attend company shareholder meetings under a false name. In February 2013, however, tragedy struck. Beisheim took his own life, presumably as one last gasp of will over his increasingly debilitating terminal illness.
Adolf Merckle
Though born in Dresden, young Adolf Merckle and his family fled to southern Germany during World War II. They lived in Blaubeuren, a small Bavarian village. Once Merckle came of age, he trained to be a lawyer. In 1967, he took over the family company Merckle GmbH which had just 80 employees. Using his pharmaceutical business knowledge, Merckle opened Ratiopharm in 1967, Germany’s first generic drug manufacturer. As the decades progressed, so did Merckle’s fortune. By the new millennium, Merckle became the fifth-richest person in Germany with a net worth of $9.2 billion.
The 2008 Financial Crisis, however, brought instability to the Merckle fortune. VEM Vermögensverwaltung, Merckle’s investment firm, faced a liquidity shortage that dropped its shares’ market value by over 75%. To keep the company afloat, Merckle made personal guarantees to the banks with his private assets. Around the same time, he made serious bets on Volkswagen stock dropping. Instead, it surged, causing an estimated $555 billion loss from Merckle’s coffers. Perhaps unable to cope with his rapidly dwindling fortune, Merckle threw himself under a speeding train near his villa in Blaubeuren at the start of 2009.
Aubrey McClendon
Born in Oklahoma City, Aubrey McClendon showed promise from a young age. He graduated co-valedictorian of his high school before attending Duke University. Though he took a job as an accountant, an article in The Wall Street Journal inspired him to transition to the energy business. This proved fortuitous, as McClendon’s energy pursuit made him a very rich man. Besides co-founding Chesapeake Energy, he became the founder and chief executive officer of American Energy Partners, LP. In these roles, McClendon became an outspoken advocate for natural gas as an oil alternative. He also helped pioneer fracking.
These positions brought McClendon untold riches. Besides co-owning the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball franchise, at one point, McClendon became one of America’s biggest landowners. On March 1, 2016, however, a grand jury indicted McClendon for violating antitrust laws by conspiring to suppress prices for oil and natural gas leases. While McClendon denied all the charges, within a day of the indictment he drove his SUV at 88 mph into a concrete bridge embankment, which killed him instantly. Whether it was a cover-up, a suicide, or a tragic accident, the world may never know.
Mike Lynch
One of the more recent tragic ends for the super-rich is Mike Lynch. Following his undergraduate degree at the University of Cambridge, Lynch used his machine learning education to set up several companies including Darktrace, Invoke Capital, and the Autonomy Corporation.
This led to him becoming a major figure in the British tech world, with many commentators comparing him to Bill Gates. These pursuits also made him rich, giving him a $1.135 billion net worth. When Lynch sold Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011, however, it led to accusations of fraud and brought civil litigation. Though he survived that round, the UK extradited Lynch to California to face criminal charges regarding the sale.
He went on trial in March 2024. Three months later, however, the court found Lynch not guilty on all counts. Intending to celebrate his high-profile acquittal, Lynch invited friends, family, and lawyers to a cruise on his family’s superyacht in the Mediterranean Sea. On Aug. 19, 2024, the boat got caught in a waterspout on the coast of Sicily, causing the ship to sink. In the process, Lynch, his daughter, and five associates died.
James Crown
While other people on this list fought their way to the top, James Crown was undoubtedly born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His father Lester Crown, is a perennial member of the Forbes 400 richest Americans list. His mother, Renée Schine, came from a wealthy hotel magnate family. Upon maturing, Crown attended Hampshire College and then earned a law degree from Stanford University. Upon graduation, Crown took an associate job at Salomon Brothers before becoming a vice president in the Capital Markets Service Group in the early 1980s.
Eventually, Crown eased back into the family business, becoming president and later chairman and chief executive of Henry Crown and Company. From there, he split his time between the investment business and more recreational pursuits like the Aspen Skiing Company. On his 70th birthday, however, tragedy struck. While racing down a track at the member-owned, country club Motorsports Park in Woody Creek, Colorado, Crown accidentally crashed his car and died instantly.
Cyrus Mistry
Much like James Crown, Cyrus Mistry was born rich. The younger son of Indian billionaire and construction magnate Pallonji Mistry, Mistry sought education at the finest schools around the globe like the London Business School before joining the family business in 1991. Success there led to Mistry becoming chairman of the Indian business conglomerate the Tata Group between 2012 and 2016. Thanks to his family wealth and a 16% stake in the Tata Group, Mistry grew into one of India’s richest men. By 2018, his net worth grew to a whopping $10 billion.
An ardent follower of the Zoroastrian faith, Mistry and several members of the wealthy Pandole family visited the Iranshah Atash Behram in Udvada on Sept. 4, 2022. They sought to offer prayers for family members. On the way back to Mumbai, however, the group’s Mercedes-Benz GLC crashed into a bridge’s road divider at over 50 mph. Since Mistry and Jehangir Pandole weren’t wearing seatbelts, the impact killed them both instantly. Driver Dr. Anahita Pandole and her husband Darius Pandole were wearing seatbelts and survived. A later investigation ruled the crash to be the fault of design since the bridge parapet wall protruded into the roadway. In response, the government also announced it would start penalizing back-seat passengers not wearing seatbelts.
Petr Kellner
Early in his career, Petr Kellner worked in television as a production assistant. After Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution, Kellner scored a job at Impromat, a seller and importer of photocopiers. There, he met Milan Maděryč and Milan Vinkler. After the announcement of Czechoslovak voucher privatization in 1991, Kellner, Maděryč, and Vinkler founded the investment fund PPF. Thanks to choice stock picks, the firm’s value quickly grew to $5 billion (CZK). From there, Kellner’s wealth increased further as he purchased more companies, hotels, and other ventures.
Throughout the early millennium, Kellner’s fortune rose by billions every year. By the time of his tragic death in 2021, he had amassed a net worth of $17.5 billion, making him the wealthiest person in the Czech Republic. On March 27, 2021, Kellner and some friends were heliskiing in the Alaskan wilderness near Knik Glacier. Somewhere between Metal Creek and Grasshopper Valley, the helicopter crashed, rolling hundreds of feet downhill before stopping. Though Kellner survived the initial crash, he tragically died while waiting for rescue.
Chris Cline
Unlike other wealthy people on this list, Chris Cline came up the hard way, working in West Virginia coal mines. Throughout his twenties, he worked as an underground miner before starting his own mining company, The Cline Group, in 1990. In the following years, Cline amassed quite a mining fortune, owning stakes in Illinois coal reserves which remain the biggest in the country. Many considered him the “new king of coal” considering his company owned three billion tons of coal reserves across the United States.
In later years, Cline went the route of many ultra-wealthy by building large mansions, buying superyachts, and donating money to Universities and political Super-PACs. On July 4, 2019, however, Cline and his 22-year-old daughter Kameron, along with three of her friends, died in a helicopter crash near Grand Cay, Bahamas. According to a later investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the two pilots took off in dark and unsuitable conditions, most likely via pressure from 60-year-old Cline.
Olivier Dassault
Olivier Dassault was born into the wealthy Boulogne-Billancourt section of Paris to businessman and politician Serge Dassault and his wife Nicole. Though raised in a rich industrialist family, Dassault pursued a military life before he returned to the family business.
He graduated from the École de l’air as a combat engineering officer and pilot before becoming a reserve member of the French Air Force. Something of a renaissance man, Dassault was elected as a deputy for the first conscription of Oise, published multiple photography books, and even composed musical scores for several movies.
Despite working in several roles in the family company, he found time to also set multiple world speed records as a professional IFR pilot. By April 2020, estimates put his net worth to be $4.7 billion. Less than a year later, however, it all came to an end. While traveling above Touques, France, the Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil helicopter he was riding in crashed, killing both him and the pilot. He was 69 years old.
Tony Hsieh
One of the early tech titans, Tony Hsieh got his business start while attending Harvard University. There, he managed the Quincy House grill and sold pizza to students in the dorm. Upon graduation, Hsieh and some friends started LinkExchange. After Microsoft bought LinkExchange for $265 million, Hsieh co-founded Venture Frogs, which failed to make any gains, before setting his sights on a different kind of business. After being approached about selling shoes online, Hsieh joined Zappos as the CEO when the company had $1.6 million in total sales. By 2009, however, Hsieh helped the company reach an incredible $1 billion in annual sales.
That same year, Amazon bought Zappos for $1.2 billion. After that, Hsieh embarked on a variety of schemes including tech investment, real estate deals, and even writing a book. He also gained a reputation for undergoing extreme physical challenges such as fasting to the point he was under 100 pounds as well as starving himself of oxygen to induce hypoxia. On Nov. 18, 2020, Hsieh somehow became trapped in the pool shed at a New London, Connecticut, home that caught fire. Though he survived the fire, Hsieh later died in the hospital from smoke inhalation. Though many rumors swirled around his death, the Connecticut medical examiner ruled it to be an accident. (For other young notable deaths, learn about 20 celebrities who died before they reached 35.)
Wang Jian
As chairman of the Chinese conglomerate the HNA Group, businessman Wang Jian amassed a spectacular number of holdings in areas as diverse as aviation, hospitality, tourism, and financial management. While this netted Jian billions of dollars, it also brought the conglomerate under the Chinese Government’s microscope. In response, China forced the company to sell off a gaggle of assets. Furthermore, the firm lost $10 billion to embezzlement in the same period. As for Jian, he missed the firm’s near-total collapse due to a freak tragedy.
While visiting France on business in 2018, Jian decided to go on a little sightseeing excursion. Upon reaching a low outcropping next to a cliff, he asked a friend to take a picture of him. While his friend readied the camera, however, Jian stumbled backward and fell 50 feet over the cliff to his death. According to French media, eyewitnesses said he jumped to his death. French police, however, disputed these claims, saying his death was accidental. His company HNA Group, already dealing with major problems, was dealt a severe blow by Jian’s untimely passing.
Ken Hendricks
After dropping out of high school in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, Ken Hendricks joined his father in the roofing business. After spending a few years reshingling houses on the weekends, Hendricks developed enough knowledge to start his own roofing/shingling firm. Within a decade, Hendricks’ small roofing company had grown into a 500-man, multi-state operation.
He wanted more personal time, however, so Hendricks’ gave the company to his employees. A little over a decade after handing his first company over, Hendricks and his wife founded ABC Supply. As the years went on, ABC Supply grew into a 500-store operation. Thanks to a litany of mergers, buyouts, and acquisitions, Hendricks’ fortune grew to $2.6 billion by 2006.
That same year, he won Inc. Magazine’s 2006 Entrepreneur of the Year award. Besides his growing fortune, Hendricks developed a reputation for his interest in green, sustainable technology. Before his death, Hendricks was slated to build a new stadium for the Wisconsin minor league baseball team the Beloit Snappers as well as an environmentally friendly roof for a complex at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. On Dec. 21, 2007, however, tragedy struck when Hendricks was inspecting work on a roof of his home. Suddenly, he fell through an under-construction subfloor into his home’s garage and died. He was 66 years old.
Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha
Born in Bangkok to a Chinese immigrant family, Vichai Raksriaksorn studied in Taiwan and the United States as a young man. In his adult years, he became a wealthy man after founding King Power, a line of duty-free shops around Thailand. Over time, King Power found remarkable success, making him the fifth-richest person in Thailand with a net worth of $4.9 billion. Thanks to his achievements, the King of Thailand Bhumibol Adulyadej bestowed him with the new surname, Srivaddhanaprabha.
Besides his successful retail business venture, Srivaddhanaprabha cultivated a love of sports like Polo. Indeed, his sons Apichet and Aiyawatt competed for the Thai national team in the 2017 Southeast Asian Games, earning a team silver medal. After watching the 1997 League Cup final between Leicester City and Middlesbrough live in England, Srivaddhanaprabha developed a passion for football. A little over a decade later, he and his son bought the Leicester City Football League Championship club. Since Srivaddhanaprabha believed the football club’s record was a matter of karma, he built Buddhist temples and cultivated relationships between the club’s players and Buddhist monks. Perhaps it worked, as Leicester City won the 2015-16 Premier League title even though they started the season ranked 5000-1.
This led Srivaddhanaprabha to buy the OH Leuven Belgian football club in 2017. A little over a year later on October 27, 2018, however, Srivaddhanaprabha’s helicopter took off from Leicester City. After failing to take the air, it spun out of control and crashed into a fireball, killing everyone on board including Srivaddhanaprabha. In response, Leicester fans brought forth an outpouring of tribute to the team’s billionaire owner. A later investigation ruled the crash to be caused by mechanical failure.
Joachim Herz
Born into one of the richest families in Germany, Joachim Herz lived a comfortable life. His father, Max Herz, founded Tchibo, a successful line of German coffee houses. Upon the father’s death, however, Herz and his siblings became embroiled in a struggle over the future of the company. Though the siblings fought a very public battle over Tchibo’s direction, Herz didn’t live long enough to see the outcome.
In July 2012, Herz was swimming in Lake Raburn in Georgia near his residence. After entering an area of the lake where swimming was restricted and without a life jacket, Herz was struck and killed by a passing 18-foot motorboat. He was 66 years old. At the time of his death, estimates put Herz’s net worth over $2 billion. (For reversals of fortune, discover 31 famous and rich people who went broke.)