Most Powerful

• #1 Ali Khamenei
  Iran Party State ControlPoliticalReligion Cold War and Globalization State Power Power: 100
  Ali Khamenei (born 1939) is a supreme Leader of Iran associated with Iran. Ali Khamenei is best known for shaping Iran’s theocratic institutions and security state as supreme leader since 1989, with decisive authority over defense, judiciary, and key appointments. This profile belongs to the site’s study of party state control and state power, where influence depends on controlling systems rather than possessing money alone. In the modern and globalized world, concentrated influence is often exercised through finance, media, regulation, infrastructure, corporate governance, and cross-border market access.
• #2 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
  Gulf regionIranIraqLebanonMashhadMiddle EastSyriaTehran PoliticalReligionReligious Hierarchy 21st Century Religious HierarchyState Power Power: 100
  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (1939–2026) was an Iranian cleric and politician who served as president of Iran from 1981 to 1989 and as Supreme Leader from 1989 until his death in 2026. As the highest authority in the Islamic Republic, he controlled key levers of state power through appointment rights over the judiciary, military leadership, state broadcasting, and influential oversight bodies. His rule consolidated a theocratic security state in which religious legitimacy, revolutionary ideology, and coercive institutions reinforced one another.
• #3 Ayatollah Khomeini
  Iran PoliticalReligionReligious Hierarchy Cold War and Globalization Religious HierarchyState Power Power: 100
  Ayatollah Khomeini (born 1902) is a religious leader; Supreme Leader of Iran (1979–1989) associated with Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini is best known for leading the 1979 Iranian Revolution, founding the Islamic Republic, and establishing the doctrine of clerical guardianship in state governance. This profile belongs to the site’s study of religious hierarchy and state power, where influence depends on controlling systems rather than possessing money alone. In the modern and globalized world, concentrated influence is often exercised through finance, media, regulation, infrastructure, corporate governance, and cross-border market access.
• #4 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
  Iran PoliticalReligionReligious Hierarchy Cold War and Globalization Religious HierarchyState Power Power: 100
  Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (born 1902) is an iranian Shia cleric; revolutionary leader; Supreme Leader of Iran (1979–1989) associated with Iran. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is best known for developing and popularizing the doctrine of velayat‑e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) and founding the Islamic Republic after the 1979 revolution. This profile belongs to the site’s study of religious hierarchy and state power, where influence depends on controlling systems rather than possessing money alone. In the modern and globalized world, concentrated influence is often exercised through finance, media, regulation, infrastructure, corporate governance, and cross-border market access.
• #5 Hassan Nasrallah
  IranLebanonSyria MilitaryParty State ControlPolitical 21st Century Military CommandState Power Power: 100
  Hassan Nasrallah (1960–2024) was a Lebanese Shia cleric and political leader who served as secretary-general of Hezbollah from 1992 until his death in 2024. Under his leadership, Hezbollah evolved from a militia rooted in the Lebanese civil war era into a hybrid organization combining an armed wing, a political party with parliamentary influence, and a broad social-services network. Nasrallah became the movement’s most recognizable public figure and a central node in the regional alliance linking Hezbollah with Iran and, at various points, with Syrian state interests.
• #6 Hulagu Khan
  CaucasusIranIraqMongol Empire MilitaryMilitary CommandPolitical Medieval Military CommandState Power Power: 100
  Hulagu Khan (c. 1217–1265) was a Mongol prince of the Toluid line and the founder of the Ilkhanate in Iran and Iraq. Commissioned by his brother [Möngke Khan](https://moneytyrants.com/mongke-khan/) to extend Mongol control into the Middle East, Hulagu led campaigns that dismantled major political and religious centers, most notably the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad in 1258. He also destroyed the Nizari Ismaili strongholds often associated with the “Assassins,” reshaping the security landscape of Iran. After conquest, Hulagu established a new regime that combined Mongol military supremacy with Persian administrative expertise, creating fiscal systems to extract revenue from agriculture, cities, and trade corridors. His reign unfolded amid complex religious and diplomatic dynamics: he cultivated alliances with Christian actors, faced opposition from Muslim powers, and entered conflict with other Mongol branches, particularly the Jochids of the Golden Horde. Hulagu’s career illustrates a distinctive wealth-and-power mechanism in which conquest destroyed existing institutions and then rebuilt extraction capacity through taxation, tribute, and control of long-distance commerce.
• #7 Ismail I
  AzerbaijanCaucasusIranMiddle East Imperial SovereigntyMilitaryPoliticalReligion Early Modern Military CommandState Power Power: 100
  Ismail I founded the Safavid Empire at the opening of the sixteenth century and changed the religious and political identity of Iran in ways that endured long after his death. When he took Tabriz in 1501 and proclaimed himself shah, he was still extraordinarily young, yet his success rested on more than youthful daring. He commanded a militant following, drew on a sacred-dynastic tradition attached to the Safavid house, and fused political conquest with religious transformation. Through him, a fragmented region became the core of a new empire.His most enduring act was the imposition of Twelver Shiism as the official religion of the state. That decision was not a decorative feature of rulership. It was a mechanism of regime formation. By defining the realm confessionally against powerful Sunni rivals, especially the Ottomans and Uzbeks, Ismail gave the Safavid state a unifying ideological core. The move created continuity between throne, doctrine, and loyalty, while also producing coercion, resistance, and long conflict.Ismail therefore matters in the history of wealth and power because he shows how imperial sovereignty can be created through charisma, war, and confessional refoundation all at once. His empire was built with cavalry, devotion, poetry, and fear. He became legendary in part because his rule seemed to collapse the boundary between saintly aura and royal command. Yet the same qualities that enabled his rise also contributed to the brittleness exposed by major military defeat. His career marks both the creation of a state and the revelation of its vulnerabilities.
• #8 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
  Iran Party State ControlPolitical World Wars and Midcentury State Power Power: 100
  Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980), the last shah of Iran, ruled at the intersection of monarchy, oil wealth, Cold War alliance, and coercive modernization. He inherited the throne in 1941 under the pressure of foreign occupation, survived a long struggle with parliamentary and nationalist rivals, and after the 1953 overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddeq turned the Pahlavi state into a far more centralized monarchy. His rule sought to present itself as modern, developmental, and globally connected. Oil revenues financed infrastructure, industrial projects, arms purchases, and royal spectacle, while the security apparatus and court patronage narrowed the space for meaningful opposition. The resulting system produced real social change but also deep alienation. By the late 1970s the monarchy’s dependence on repression, inequality, and foreign backing had become impossible to conceal, and the Iranian Revolution swept it away. His career illustrates how resource wealth can magnify state capacity while weakening political legitimacy.
• #9 Nader Shah
  IranPersia MilitaryMilitary Command Early Modern Military Command Power: 100
  Nader Shah (1688 – 1747) was a Persian ruler and commander who rebuilt Iranian military power in the early eighteenth century and briefly created an empire through rapid campaigning, aggressive taxation, and spectacular transfers of wealth taken as tribute and war booty. Rising from a period of internal collapse and foreign invasion, he became the dominant military figure of Iran before taking the throne and projecting power across the Caucasus, Central Asia, and into the Mughal domains of northern India.
• #10 Reza Shah
  Iran Imperial SovereigntyPolitical World Wars and Midcentury State Power Power: 100
  Reza Shah (1878–941) was a shah of Iran associated with Iran. Reza Shah is best known for centralizing a state through military-backed modernization and coercive reform. This profile belongs to the site’s study of imperial sovereignty and state power, where influence depends on controlling systems rather than possessing money alone. Across this era, wealth and command were less about possession alone than about controlling the systems through which other people had to move.
• #11 Dara Khosrowshahi
  IranUnited States TechnologicalTechnology Platform Control Cold War and Globalization Technology Platforms Power: 62
  Dara Khosrowshahi (born 1969) is an Iranian-American business executive who became chief executive officer of Uber in 2017 after previously leading Expedia. His public profile is closely tied to guiding Uber through a transition from hypergrowth and cultural controversy into a more compliance-oriented, financially disciplined technology company. Under his leadership Uber expanded its business mix, strengthened governance and safety programs, and emphasized turning a large platform marketplace into a sustainable enterprise with clearer rules for drivers, riders, and regulators.Khosrowshahi’s influence reflects technology platform control expressed through logistics. Ride-hailing and delivery platforms coordinate millions of transactions by setting marketplace rules, pricing methods, and access policies. This creates power not only over the customer interface but also over how labor is classified, how cities regulate transportation, and how supply is distributed across neighborhoods and time periods. The platform’s value grows with density and reliability, making scale a competitive advantage that is difficult for smaller entrants to match.