The world’s top two richest people have a combined fortune that is just astrnomical, and at the top, there’s always a battle for number 1. Now, after more than two years, Bill Gates has surpassed Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to once again take home the title of the World’s Richest Man at $110 billion.
So what was the catalyst for change? Their fortune keeps changing according to market fluctuations and annoucements of new deal and ventures. This time around Gates may have been helped in part by the Pentagon’s decision to award a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft over Amazon.
Since the announcement, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, shares of Microsoft have since climbed 4% and Amazon’s stock is down about 2%.
But before you feel too bad for Bezos, his net worth is now at $108.7 billion.
Bill Gates amassed his wealth as the founder of Microsoft. Today, less than 12.5% of his net worth comes from Microsoft shares though. The majority of his assets these days are held in his investment firm, Cascade, including a some assets in Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate founded by Gates’ friend Warren Buffett.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ personal fortune would have been considerably higher if not for his dovorce with ex-wife, MacKenzie, after 25 years of marriage. She recieved a quarter of his Amazon holdings.
However according to Bloomberg, Gates would still be the richest person in the world if it wasn’t for his philanthropic giving. He has so far donated over $35 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Share of wealth given up by billionaires to charity.
Bill Gates: 46%
Michael Dell: 9%
Carlos Slim: 6%
Sergey Brin: 5%
Ma Huateng: 4%
Larry Page: 3%
Mark Zuckerberg: 2.4%
Larry Ellison: 2.1%
Jeff Bezos: 1.9%(Source: Business Insider)
— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) November 16, 2019
