Bill Gates remained the richest person in the world in 2016, according to new rankings from Forbes, with a total worth of $86.8 billion, $9 billion more than runner-up Warren Buffet.
Microsoft’s co-founder is number one for the fourth consecutive year, and he’s been the richest person on the planet for 18 of the past 23 years.
What’s very interesting, however, is that not Microsoft makes Bill Gates the richest man out there, even though he still owns 174,992,934 shares in the company estimated at more than $11 billion, or approximately 13 percent of his fortune, Forbes says.
“He also has investments in Canadian National Railway, tractor maker Deere & Co. and car dealer AutoNation. In December 2016, Gates announced the creation of a $1 billion Breakthrough Energy investment fund with about 20 other people - including Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos and Alibaba founder Jack Ma - to invest in new forms of clean energy,” the site says in today’s report.
Warren Buffet is runner-up with a net worth of $77.1 billion, while Amancio Ortega reached the third place with $74.1 billion. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is fourth with $73.8 billion, followed by former number 2 Carlos Slim with $59.5 billion. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is on the sixth position with $58.6 billion.
Steve Ballmer also made the list on position number 21 with $30.1 billion. Ballmer is currently the largest individual Microsoft shareholder and owns the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team which he purchased in 2014 for $2 billion, while also holding 4 percent of Twitter.
For what it’s worth, Bill Gates regularly sells Microsoft shares, and he is currently holding just 2.5 percent of the company shares. Former CEO Steve Ballmer owns 333,252,990 shares of Microsoft after previously serving as CEO of the company for more than 13 years.
