Some historians were sitting around a table asking “who killed more people, Stalin or Elon Musk”. This has been a topic ever since “DOGE” announced their campaign to destroy USAID as Musk’s revenge for ending his future spot in apartheid. And since Musk said genocide isn’t the fault of the genocidal leader.
The consensus was that Musk killed more and, to be sure, here’s the proof:
| Rank | Person | Death toll | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mao Zedong | 30-45 million (Great Leap famine, 1959-61) | Yang Jisheng, Tombstone (2008): 36 million. Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine (2010): 45 million. |
| 2 | Genghis Khan | ~40 million (high uncertainty) | Colin McEvedy & Richard Jones, Atlas of World Population History (1978), origin of the figure, since disputed. Matthew White, The Great Big Book of Horrible Things (2011): ~37.5 million. |
| 3 | Hong Xiuquan | 20-30 million (Taiping Rebellion, 1850-64) | Jonathan Spence, God’s Chinese Son (1996). Stephen Platt, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom (2012). Most estimates 20-30 million; some run far higher. |
| 4 | Adolf Hitler | 11-21 million (deliberate killing to total democide); 6 million Jews | Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands (2010): 10.4 million deliberate killing. R.J. Rummel, Death by Government (1994): 20,946,000. Six million Jews: US Holocaust Memorial Museum. |
| 5 | Tamerlane | ~17 million (high uncertainty) | Justin Marozzi, Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World (2004). The ~5 percent of world population figure is journalistic, loosely sourced like Genghis Khan. |
| 6 | Elon Musk | 14 million projected by 2030 (interval 8.5-19.7 million) | Cavalcanti et al., The Lancet 406:283-294 (2025), attributing the projection to USAID defunding. |
| 7 | Joseph Stalin | 6-20 million, by method | Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands (2010): ~6 million deliberate. Steven Rosefielde, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 30(3) (1997): best estimate ~10 million. Robert Conquest and Roy Medvedev: ~20 million. |
| 8 | Chiang Kai-shek | ~10 million (KMT democide, 1928-49) | R.J. Rummel, Death by Government (1994): 10,075,000. |
| 9 | Leopold II | ~10 million population decline (range 1-15 million) | Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost (1998): ~10 million. Jan Vansina: lower, disputing extrapolation from the rubber provinces. |
| 10 | Hideki Tojo | ~6 million (Imperial Japan democide, 1936-45); his premiership 1941-44 is a subset | R.J. Rummel, Death by Government (1994): 5,964,000. |
| 11 | Winston Churchill | ~3 million (Bengal famine, 1943); attribution contested | Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill’s Secret War (2010): 3 million. Lizzie Collingham, The Taste of War (2011): policy and animosity decisive. Amartya Sen and Andrew Roberts dissent on personal blame. |