Bill Gates remains the World's Richest Man

onnaedo

March 2, 2015 4:24 PM

Microsoft boss, Bill Gates retains his number 1 position, having reclaimed it from Carlos Slim in March 2014.

Slumping oil prices notwithstanding, the exclusive club of billionaires defied all the odds and stayed smiling to the bank as Forbes releases its list of annual richest people in the world.

Microsoft boss, Bill Gates retains his number 1 position, having reclaimed it from Carlos Slim in March 2014. The tech boss' fortune grew $3.2 billion since last year to $79.2 billion, in spite a gift of $1.5 billion in Microsoft shares to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in November 2014. Bill Gates has been the richest person in the world for 16 of the past 21 years.

Carlos Slim Helú of Mexico comes in again at Number 2 while American investor Warren Buffett took back the No. 3 spot from Spain’s Amancio Ortega. Meanwhile Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (30 years) moves up 5 spots to number 16, his first time ranked among the world’s 20 richest. While Evan Spiegel, co-founder of photo-messaging app Snapchat emerged the youngest billionaire at 24.

According to Yahoo Finance, Forbes found a record 1,826 billionaires with an aggregate net worth of $7.05 trillion, up from $6.4 trillion a year ago. The total includes 290 new billionaires and a record 197 women, up from 172 last year.

Check out the top 10 richest people in the world:

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