Jeff Bezos & family
According to the list announced by Forbes, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, 55, remains the world's richest person with a net worth of $131 billion. Bezos holds 16 per cent stake in the e-commerce giant. In January, he and his wife, MacKenzie, announced they are getting divorce after 25 years of marriage. Terms of the split have not been disclosed, but this could end up being very costly. After his divorce settlement he may not be the richest in the world. Bezos also owns The Washington Post and Blue Origin, an aerospace company that is developing a rocket for commercial use.
Bill Gates
As per Forbes 2019 rich list, Bill Gates has a net worth of $96.5 billion. With his wife Melinda, Bill Gates chairs the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest private charitable foundation. Gates, who owns just over 1% stake in Microsoft Corporation, has donated $35.8 billion worth of his stock to the Gates Foundation. He remains a board member of Microsoft, the software firm he founded with Paul Allen in 1975.
Warren Buffett
Known as the "Oracle of Omaha," Warren Buffett, 88, is one of the most successful investors of all time. As per Forbes, Waren Buffet has a net worth of 82.5 billion. He runs Berkshire Hathaway, which owns more than 60 companies, including insurer Geico, battery maker Duracell and restaurant chain Dairy Queen. Buffet, son of former Republican Congressman, first bought stock at age 11 and first filed taxes at age 13. He's promised to give away over 99% of his fortune. In 2018, he donated $3.4 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, run by his friends Bill and Melinda Gates. Buffet has given $35.1 billion in philanthropic activities.
Bernard Arnault & family
Bernard Arnault, 70, is one of the world's ultimate taste-makers, and chief executive of luxury goods empire LVMH. Bernard Arnault oversees an empire of 70 brands including Louis Vuitton and Sephora. As per Forbes 2019 rich list, he is worth $76 billion. His luxury goods group, LVMH, posted record sales and profits in 2018, supported by increase in spending by Chinese customers. This arts patron is the visionary behind the $135 million Frank Gehry-designed Foundation Louis Vuitton museum near Paris, opened in 2014.
Carlos Slim Helu & family
Carlos Slim Helu, 79, is the richest man of Mexico with a net worth of $64 billion. He and his family control America Movil, the Latin America's biggest mobile network operator. With foreign telecom partners, Slim bought a stake in Telmex, Mexico's only phone company, in 1990. Telmex is now part of America Movil. He also owns stakes in Mexican construction, consumer goods, mining and real estate companies. He holds 17% stake in The New York Times.
Amancio Ortega
Amancio Ortega, 82, with a net worth of $62.7 billion is one of the richest men in Europe and the wealthiest retailer in the world. A pioneer in fast fashion, he cofounded Inditex, known for its Zara fashion chain, with his ex-wife Rosalia Mera (died in 2013) in 1975. As per Forbes, he owns about 60% of Madrid-listed Inditex, which has 8 brands, including Massimo Dutti and Pull & Bear, and 7,500 stores around the world. Ortega typically earns more than $400 million in dividends a year. He has invested his dividends primarily into real estate in Madrid, Barcelona, London, Chicago, Miami and New York. He also owns Spanish soccer team Deportivo La Coruna.
Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison, 74, cofounded software firm Oracle in 1977 to tap into the growing need for customer relationship management databases. As per Forbes 2019 rich list, he is worth $62.5 billion. He gave up the Oracle CEO role in 2014 but still serves as chairman of the board and chief technology officer. In May 2016, Ellison pledged $200 million to the University of Southern California for a cancer treatment centre. In March 2018, Ellison launched a wellness start up called Sensei, whose first project is hydroponic farming on the Hawaiian island Lanai. Ellison joined Tesla's board in December 2018, after purchasing 3 million Tesla shares earlier that year.
Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg, age 34, started Facebook at Harvard in 2004, at the age of 19 for students to match names with faces in class. He took Facebook public in May 2012, which was the biggest IPO in technology and one of the biggest in internet history, with a peak market capitalization of over $104 billion. Zuckerberg owns nearly 17% stake in the social media company. In December 2015, Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, pledged to give away 99% of their Facebook stake over their lifetimes. In 2019, Mark Zuckerberg is worth a massive $62.3 billion as per Forbes.
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg, 77, cofounded financial information and media company Bloomberg LP in 1981. He put in the seed funding for the company and now owns 88% of the business, which has revenues worth of $9 billion. Bloomberg got his start on Wall Street in 1966 with an entry level job at investment bank Salomon Brothers. He was fired 15 years later. At present Michael Bloomberg is worth $55.5 billion. An active philanthropist, he has donated more than $5 billion to gun control, climate change and other causes. Till now, he has given $6 billion in philanthropic activities.
Larry page
Larry Page, 45, sits at the helm of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, healthcare division Calico, smart home appliance division Nest and more. He is a self-made billionaire who cofounded Google in 1998 with fellow Stanford Ph.D. student Sergey Brin. With Brin, Page invented Google's PageRank algorithm, which powers the search engine. Page was Google's first CEO until 2001. After serving as president of products, he took the CEO job again in 2011.
Charles Koch
Charles Koch, 83, has been chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, America's second largest private company by revenue, since 1967. The diversified company has some $110 billion in revenues from businesses including pipelines, chemicals, Dixie cups, and Stainmaster carpet. He owns a 42% stake in the firm, as does his brother, David; they bought their two other brothers' shares in 1983.
David Koch
David Koch, 78, shares majority control of Koch Industries, the second largest private U.S. firm in terms of revenue, with his brother Charles. Koch stepped down from his role as executive vice president in July 2018, citing health concerns; he was named director emeritus. A well-known philanthropist, David is a donor to New York's Lincoln Center and Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Mukesh Ambani
As per Forbes, Mukesh Ambani, 61, has a net worth of $50 billion. Mukesh Ambani chairs and runs $60 billion (revenue) oil and gas giant Reliance Industries, among India's most valuable companies. Reliance was founded by his late father Dhirubhai Ambani, a yarn trader, in 1966 as a small textile manufacturer. After his father's death in 2002, Ambani and his younger sibling Anil divvied up the family empire. In 2016, Reliance sparked a price war in India's hyper-competitive telecom market with the launch of 4G phone service Jio. Reliance Jio has signed on 280 million customers by offering free domestic voice calls, dirt-cheap data services and virtually free smartphones.
Sergey Brin
Sergie Brin, 45, has a net worth of $49.8 billion. He is a self-made billionaire having a philanthropy score of 4 out of 10. Sergey Brin is the President of tech giant Alphabet, the parent firm of Google. He previously ran the secretive Google X division, which made Google glasses. Brin cofounded search engine firm Google with Larry Page in 1998. Brin and Page met at Stanford University while studying for advanced degrees in computer science.
Francoise Bettencourt Meyers & family
Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, 65, is the richest woman in the world having a net worth of $49.3 billion. Granddaughter of L'Oreal's founder, Bettencourt Meyers and her family own 33% of L'Oreal stock, which recorded its best sales growth in more than a decade in 2018. She has served on L'Oreal's board since 1997 and is chairwoman of the family holding company. She became France's reigning L'Oreal Heiress in 2017 when her mother Liliane Bettencourt, then the world's richest woman, died at age 94. Bettencourt Meyers serves as the president of her family's philanthropic foundation, which encourages French progress in the sciences and arts.