Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates may no longer be involved in day-to-day business activities at his company but that hasn"t stopped him from keeping his position as the richest person in America. Forbes" newest list of the 400 richest people from the US has Gates, not surprisingly, on top with a net worth estimated to be a whopping $59 billion. That"s well above the person at number two on the list. Warren Buffet, the head of Berkshire Hathaway, who is worth $39 billion, while the person at number three, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, has a net worth of $33 billion. It seems pretty clear that Gates will be hanging on to that number one spot for some time to come.
Other people from the tech industry on the list includes Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who takes the number 13 slot at $19.1 billion, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at number 14 with $17.5 billion, and Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who tie at number 15 with $16.7 billion each. Two more Microsoft co-founders made the short list. Microsoft"s current CEO Steve Ballmer is in 19th place with a net worth of $13.9 billion and co-founder Paul Allen is at number 23 with $13.2 billion.
Even though Apple is now bigger than nearly every other company in the world in terms of its market value, its founder and former CEO Steve Jobs isn"t very high up on Forbes" list this year. It shows Jobs at number 39 with an estimated net worth of "only" $7 billion.