Forbes List: Warren Buffett the richest man in the world

Forbes List: Warren Buffett the richest man in the world The latest Forbes list of the world's richest people is out and Warren Buffett is now the wealthiest man on the planet, surpassing previous winner Bill Gates. Riding on the success of his Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK), the personal fortune of Warren Buffett jumped up by $10 billion during the last year for a total of about $62 million, making the world's most popular investor also the world's richest man, according to Forbes magazine. The extra $10 billion Buffett earned was enough to place him on top of the list, a spot previously occupied 13 years in a row by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Only $2 billion was the extra wealth Bill Gates managed to accumulate in the past year, coming third with the estimate total of $58 billion. According to Forbes, Gates could have kept the title "world's richest man" had Microsoft not made a bid to buy-out Yahoo, which resulted in 15% decrease of Microsoft's stock price at the time Forbes "locked in stock prices for the 2008 World's Billionaires list." Bill Gates, however, couldn't be more happy with the rise of the wealth of Warren Buffett, who in the summer of 2006 irrevocably earmarked the majority of his Berkshire shares to charity, most going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

But the biggest winner in 2007 is Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helú, whose personal fortune has risen $11 billion since March of 2007 to the estimate total of $60 billion, placing him second on Forbes World's Richest People list. The Bodog online gambling company founder Calvin Ayre, who ranked 746 among The World's Richest People In 2006, did not make the list this time. Visit Forbes Magazine for more details.

Published on 03/06/2008