Below is a list of the 10 most wealthy individuals on the planet. The ranking is as from the net-worth rank by forbes real time billionaire list 2020. Also see How Billionaires Go Broke: 8 People Who Lost Almost Everything.
10. Jim Walton
James Carr Walton (born June 7, 1948) is an heir to the fortune of Walmart, the world’s largest retailer.Walton is the 10th-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $51.5 billion.He is the youngest son of Sam Walton.
He was CEO of his family owned Arvest Bank, until becoming Chairman of Arvest Bank, and Chairman of newspaper firm Community Publishers Inc. (CPI) owned by Jim Walton himself (but founded by his father Sam Walton after acquiring the local newspaper the Benton County Daily Record, both operating in Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
9. Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P.. He was the mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.
Bloomberg grew up in Medford, Massachusetts and graduated from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School. He began his career at the securities brokerage Salomon Brothers before forming his own company in 1981. That company, Bloomberg L.P., is a financial information, software and media firm that is known for its Bloomberg Terminal. Bloomberg spent the next twenty years as its chairman and CEO. In 2019, Forbes ranked him as the ninth-richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $55.5 billion. Since signing The Giving Pledge, Bloomberg has given away $8.2 billion.
8. Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony Ballmer (born March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and investor who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft from January 13, 2000, to February 4, 2014, and is the current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
His personal wealth is estimated at US $56.2 billion, ranking him the 8th richest person in the world.
Ballmer was hired by Bill Gates at Microsoft in 1980 and subsequently left the MBA program at Stanford University. He eventually became President in 1998, and replaced Gates as CEO in 2000.
Amancio Ortega Gaona (born 28 March 1936) is a Spanish billionaire businessman. He is the founder and former chairman of Inditex fashion group, best known for its chain of Zara clothing and accessories shops.
Ortega has a net worth of $59.2 billion, making him the second-wealthiest person in Europe after Bernard Arnault, and the seventh-wealthiest in the world.
For a brief period of time in 2015, he was the richest man in the world, bypassing Bill Gates when his net worth peaked to $80 billion as Zara’s parent company, Inditex‘s, stock peaked.
He is the head of the Ortega family and the second wealthiest retailer in the world.
Read also: How Billionaires Go Broke: 8 People Who Lost Almost Everything
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg ( born May 14, 1984) is an American internet entrepreneur and philanthropist.
He is known for co-founding Facebook, Inc. and serves as its chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder. He also co-founded and is a board member of the solar sail spacecraft development project Breakthrough Starshot.
He has a net worth of $59.2 B.
Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist who is a co-founder and the executive chairman and chief technology officer (CTO) of Oracle Corporation.
He was listed by Forbes magazine as the fourth-wealthiest person in the United States and as the fifth-wealthiest in the world, with a fortune of $69.1 billion, increased from $54.5 billion in 2018.
Warren Edward Buffett ( born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist, who is the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is considered one of the most successful investors in the world[3][4] and has a net worth of $88.9 billion as of December 2019, making him the fourth-wealthiest person in the world.
Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault (born 5 March 1949) is a French billionaire business magnate, and art collector. Arnault is the chairman and chief executive of LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton SE, LVMH, the world’s largest luxury-goods company.
In April 2018, he became the richest person in fashion, topping Zara’sAmancio Ortega.
He is the third richest man in the world with a net-worth of $86.0 B
2. Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, software developer, investor, and philanthropist. He is best known as the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation.
During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president and chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014. He is one of the best-known entrepreneurs and pioneers of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.
Since 1987, he has been included in the Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest documented individuals. From 1995 to 2017, he held the Forbes title of the richest person in the world all but four of those years.
In October 2017, he was surpassed by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who had an estimated net worth of US$90.6 billion compared to Gates’ net worth of US$89.9 billion at the time.
As of November 9, 2019, Gates had an estimated net worth of US$107.1 billion, making him the second wealthiest person in the world, behind Bezos.
Jeffrey Preston Bezos (born January 12, 1964) is an American internet and aerospace entrepreneur, media proprietor, and investor. He is best known as the founder, chief executive officer, and president of Amazon.
The first centi-billionaire on the Forbes wealth index, Bezos was named the “richest man in modern history” after his net worth increased to $150 billion in July 2018.
In September 2018, Forbes described him as “far richer than anyone else on the planet” as he added $1.8 billion to his net worth when Amazon became the second company in history to reach a market cap of $1 trillion.
The first centi-billionaire on the Forbes wealth index, Bezos was named the “richest man in modern history” after his net worth increased to $150 billion in July 2018.