Who Is the Richest Man in the World?

Although many people may think that Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, they would be wrong. Although he has held the top spot in the past, the creator of Microsoft fell to the number two spot in the 2010 statistics published by Forbes Magazine on the richest people in the world.

Despite the fact that he has fallen in rankings, he is still worth an astounding $53 billion dollars.

Currently, the richest man in the world is Carlos Slim Helu, a self-made billionaire from Mexico, who is worth $53.5 billion. in 2009, he was in third place. However, in the past year his worth has skyrocketed by an incredible $18.5 billion dollars. With all of that financial success in only a year's time, it certainly seems fair that he is topping the list.

The main source of his income is Telecom, Mexico's national telephone company. He also has begun a movement to include American Movil, Latin America's largest mobile phone company, in his holdings. His construction company, Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo builds road and energy developments which is another vast source of his income. He is also a shareholder in several groups including:

• Inbursa
• Bronco Drilling
• Independent News and Media
• Saks
• The New York Times

He plans to donate $65 million dollars for a genomic medicine research project along with Eli Broad, an American billionaire.

A citizen of Mexico, Helu is 70 years old as of 2011 and lives in Mexico City. He attended the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and received a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science. His wife is deceased, and he has six children.

Other Billionaires

The Forbes list includes only billionaires, and there are some other extremely wealthy people living in the world. The top ten people share some very interesting and notable traits.

All of them are men. The first woman on the Forbes list is Christy Walton and family at number 12 with $22.5 billion dollars.

All of the top ten are 52 years of age or older, with the youngest being Mukesh Abami at 52 years of age, and the oldest being 90 year old Karl Albrecht.

They all come from only eight countries:

• Mexico
• United States
• India
• United Kingdom
• France
• Brazil
• Spain
• Germany

The following is a list of the top ten richest people and their net worth.

• Carlos Slim Helu & family ($53.5 billion)
• William Gates III ($53 billion)
• Warren Buffet ($47 billion)
• Mukesh Ambani ($29 billion)
• Lakshmi Mittal ($28.7 billion)
• Lawrence Ellison ($28 billion)
• Bernard Arnault ($27.5 billion)
• Eike Batista ($27 billion)
• Amancio Ortega ($25 billion)
• Karl Albrecht ($23.5 billion)

Perspective

Forbes lists everyone that has at least one billion dollars, and they have 937 spots on that list. Although there are some ties, and over 100 people share that 937th spot, this is still an extremely small percentage of the population. The next time anyone thinks that everyone around them is a billionaire living in a fancy mansion, he or she may want to look at this list to remind him or herself that billionaires are extremely hard to find.