In a club of two, the only humans worth $100,000,000,000
IN the world of the super-wealthy, two men leave the rest standing.
For the first time there are two ‘centibil-lionaires’ – Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos.
Their fortunes have topped $100billion (£76billion) each, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Mr Gates, 63, became a centibillionaire at the height of the dot-com bubble, and returned to the exclusive club yesterday after he added £7.3billion to his fortune in the past year. Mr Bezos, 55, is the richest man alive, with £111billion to his name, having added almost £16billion to his wealth in the previous 12 months.
However, his position in the $100billion club may be short lived because he faces what may be the world’s most expensive divorce. It is likely to make his wife MacKenzie the world’s richest woman and, if he hands over part of his shareholding, threatens to weaken his position on the Amazon board. The figures are produced by the financial company Bloomberg, which takes the stock market and wider economic indicators into account.
The combined wealth of the richest 500 people has gone up £386billion to £2.67trillion, eclipsing Britain’s gross domestic product – the value of all the goods and services it produces.
There are 17 people from the UK in the top 500, with Jim Ratcliffe, chief executive of the chemicals company Ineos, in top spot with £13.7billion.