Back in 2007, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was the richest man in the world. He lost that title to Carlos Slim, who has holdings in telecommunications, minings, and other businesses. Gates has now reclaimed the number one spot with a value of $72.7 billion dollars!
According to data from Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Bill Gates has a value of $72.7 billion dollars, beating out Carlos Slim by $550 million dollars. Gates’ fortune rose by $10 billion dollars just this year alone. Slim’s fortune dropped thanks to a bill passed by Mexico’s Congress that kills the market dominance of Slim’s America Movil SAB. The bill forces phone companies who have more than 50% of the market to either break up or share their networks, enforced by regulators. Currently, America Movil has 70% of Mexico’s mobile-phone subscribers and 80% of landline subscribers.
Bill Gates, on the other hand, has benefited from a rally in stock holdings that include the Canadian National Railway and a waste collection agency called Republic Services Inc. “Most of Gates’s fortune is held through Cascade Investment LLC, a holding entity through which he owns stakes in more than a dozen publicly traded companies and several closely held operations, including Four Seasons hotels and Corbis Corp. Less than a quarter of Gates’s fortune is held in Microsoft. He’s donated $28 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,” Bloomberg adds.
