By; PETER NOSAKHARE, Kaduna
Forbes Magazine has named the founder and Chief Executive of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, as the world’s richest man with net worth of 112billion Dollars fortune.
Bezos replaces the Microsoft Co-founder, Bill Gates who fell back into second place with 90 billion Dollars.
Forbes calculated that Bezos’ fortune, which is mostly held in Amazon shares, increased by 39.2 billion Dollars over the past year, the biggest ever one year again. Amazon’s shares have nearly doubled from 846 Dollars per share last March to 1,523 Dollars per share on Monday Night.
Gates, who had topped the billionaires list for 18 of the3 last 24 years, saw his fortune rise modestly from 86 billion Dollars to 90 billion Dollars.
Collectively, the world’s 2,208 billionaires hold 9.1 trillion Dollars more than three times the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United Kingdom.
The billionaires increased their combined Wealth by 1.4billion Dollars over the past year.
The list is published in Forbes latest edition under the headline, “The Super-rich continue to get richer, widening the gap between then and everyone else”
Twelve out of the top15 richest people are from the United States, with investor Warren Buffett in third place with 84billion Dollars.
Frances Bernard Arnault of Luxury Group, LVMH is the richest person from outside the United States with a 72 billion Dollars fortune.
