Chicago (IL) – Bill Gates may be buying shoes at a discount store using his Platinum Big Top Points card and won’t pay more than $7 for his hair cut, but it is a simple fact that he won’t be running out of cash anytime soon. He is at the top of the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest again, passing his friend Warren Buffet, to whom he briefly lost the top spot this spring.

Bill Gates, who left his day-to-day executive job at the company he co-founded in 1975 earlier this year, is listed by Forbes as the wealthiest American with an estimated fortune of $57.0 billion. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is ranked 12th with $16.0 billion and Steve Ballmer at 16th completes the Microsoft trio within the top 20 of the Forbes list with a fortune of $15.0 billion.    

Warren Buffett dropped back to number 2 with a net worth of $50.0 billion, which translates into a 15% decrease since February of this year. Oracle’s Larry Ellison came in third at $27.0 billion. Other IT people in the list include Michael Dell at #11 with $17.3 billion, Sergey Brin with $15.9 billion and Larry Page with $15.8 billion.

In a rare instance, Forbes says that the rich haven’t gotten richer this year. You will still need “only” $1.3 billion to make the list and the assembled net worth of the wealthiest rose just 2% or $30 billion to $1.57 trillion. The September listing shows 32 new faces, while 33 people dropped from the list. New faces include fertilizer manufacturer Alexander Rovt, car dealer Norman Braman and Patrón tequila founder John Paul DeJoria.

great....

Sep 18, 2008 17:06     

It's nice to know that there will be the super wealthy during these harth times, where we will be eating out of cat food cans. Lucky for us, Gates is a philanthropist....
Sorbitol report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +5

hey!

Sep 19, 2008 03:39     

That's pathetic sorbitol. Get of the internet and do some work then you should be okay.
The_Trutherizer report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -3

Well

Sep 19, 2008 05:33     

They didn't rise much at all you say? Just a measly 2%? That can't mean much, I'll keep on reading - SWEET JESUS.
Revrant report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

MS basically a monopoly

Sep 19, 2008 14:00     

Microsoft is bascly a monopoly. It wasn't until recently that one could get something other than Windows pre-installed on a computer. Even if one installed a different os on ones pc, one still had to pay for Windows. BG used alot of monopolistic and FUD to - almost - destroy the competition A court agreed with IBM that MS used FUD to get rid of OS/2 and made MS pay IBM alot of money. :) I just wish IBM used the money to continue developing OS/2. I hope IBM continues developing Linux. :)

TomLeeM/BigWarpGuy report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1