The past week, Forbes list of – ‘The World’s Billionaire’ had seen a roller coaster ride. William Henry Bill Gates III, the principal founder of Microsoft Corporation has held the Forbes title of the wealthiest person in the world all but four of those years and held it from March 2014 to July 2017.
Gates was included in this list since 1987. From 1997 to 2017 he held this position for almost two decades. On October 27 2017, Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, surpassed Gates making him the second richest man in the world. Jeff had an estimated net worth of US$90.6 billion then.
Since then Gates was holding the position of the worlds second wealthiest person. However, for the first time in the seven-year history of Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, Gates has ranked lower than No.2.
The founder and CEO of the multinational Luxury Goods Louis Vitton SE (LVMH), Bernard Arnault, pushed his net worth to $107.6 billion and ahead of Gates by more than $200 million.
Arnault, a French Businessman, whose estimated worth to be $80.8 billion in January, has gained more than $39.1 billion in the last one year, according to the Bloomerang real-time billionaire list.
But his fortune did not favour for not longer than a week as the world’s second-richest person. Bernard Arnault was dropped down to the third place, according to Forbes’ calculations, following a decline in the share price of LVMH. Bill Gates, boosted by stronger Microsoft stock, regained his spot as the second-richest person in the world.
The LVMH is behind brands such as Louis Vuitton and Moet & Chandon, showed a sudden drop in the net worth to $100.7 billion. A decline of about $2.5 billion in less than one week ago. LVMH shares have fallen 1.7% in the past week. Gates moved back into the No. 2 spot. His net worth jumped to a current $104 billion, from $102.9 billion last week, by a hike in the price of Microsoft’s shares.
According to Bloomberg, if not for his philanthropic giving, Gates would still be the world’s richest person. Gates has donated more than $35 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
