Top 15 Richest People In The World 2020

2020 has been a phenomenal year for the world's richest people billionaires wealth rose more than trillion dollars during the kovite 19 pandemic and entrepreneurs like elon musk saw their net worth increased astronomically today we're looking at the 15 richest people in the world right now jim walton is one of the heirs to the walmart fortune

he is the youngest of the walton

siblings and decided to get involved

with the financial arm of the company

specifically he runs the family's

harvest bank which has more than 16

billion dollars in assets he has been

involved in political campaigning over

the years but mostly shies away from the

spotlight after serving on the walmart

board for more than a decade

he has stepped down regardless his net

worth ballooned to 67.6 billion dollars

making him the 15th wealthiest person on

earth

alice walton is another walmart heir

unlike her brother

she stayed away from the day-to-day

operations at walmart walton also has a

reputation as a prolific art collector

her collection is worth many millions of

dollars and her personal fortune is

worth 67.8 billion dollars in total

making her the 14th wealthiest person on

earth this is an increase of over 20

billion dollars in under a year

all of which came from dividends and

stocks from walmart if only everyone

could make 20 billion dollars in passive

income

francois bettencourt cormaya is the

wealthiest woman in the world

and the 13th richest overall she is the

sole daughter and heiress of lillian

bettencourt

and she currently owns the l'oreal

family of businesses the french woman is

famous for suing her mother while she

was dying in order to gain control of

her finances the result gave betinco

myers 72.3 billion dollars

she is not renowned for her philanthropy

and due to the scandal with her mother

she has many critics outside of business

she is known for contributing

commentaries to the bible

steve ballmer is the lesser known

microsoft billionaire he was not a

founding member of microsoft but was

their 30th employee

meaning he was definitely present from

the beginning he served as the ceo

between and 2014 though his leadership

received mixed reviews

ulma managed to walk away with a ton of

microsoft stock

he sold some of it and bought the los

angeles clippers basketball team which

turned out to be a great investment

he is currently valued at 72.5 billion

dollars

unlike bill gates the former microsoft

ceo does not make philanthropy a

priority

meaning that his net worth continues to

increase

sergey brin co-founded the world's most

used website with larry page

in 1998. that's right bren is one of the

masterminds behind

google he now serves as the president of

google's parent company alphabet

born in moscow in 1973 bryn immigrated

to the united states with his family

from the soviet union

at the age of six after raising one

million dollars from family

friends and other investors the pair

launched the company in 1998

headquartered in the heart of

california's silicon valley google held

its initial public offering in august

making bryn and paige billionaires

google has since become the world's most

popular search engine receiving an

average of more than a trillion searches

a day in 2016.

the somewhat anonymous technocrat has a

net worth of 75 billion dollars

making him the 11th wealthiest person on

earth

amancio ortega is not well known outside

of his native spain

but the businessman is almost synonymous

with fast fashion he was the founder of

inditex which includes fast fashion

chains such as zara pull and bear

massimo duty

bershka stradivarius oysho and utterque

even though some consumers opted to buy

used clothes as their incomes contracted

in 2020

inditec still made an amazing profit

notoriously private

few people know much about ortega but

through tax records it's clear that he

makes more than 400 million dollars just

from dividends every year

on top of his corporate profits ortega

is worth 75.2 billion dollars

positioning him in the tenth rank on our

list

mukesh ambani may not be a household

name like other billionaires on this

list but he is one of the most powerful

people in the world

the yemeni-born indian business mogul is

the chairman and managing director

of the indian conglomerate reliance

industries limited or ril

the foremost company of the indian

energy and materials conglomerate

reliance group

his net worth currently sits at 75.8

billion dollars

making him the ninth wealthiest person

in the world he has gained more than 25

billion dollars in the last year

larry page is famous for co-founding the

now universal search engine

google these days google is just one of

the numerous companies falling under the

umbrella of paige's media conglomerate

alphabet

google makes up more than 87 of the

total search engine market

meaning that it earns a colossal total

in ad revenue

this helped push larry page to the

number eight spot on the countdown

the 47 year old has a net worth of 77.2

billion dollars

larry ellison is the founder and ceo of

oracle corporation

he is also a major investor in tesla in

1977 ellison and two of his colleagues

founded software development labs and

soon had a contract to build a database

management system which they called

oracle for the cia the company had fewer

than 10 employees and revenue of less

than 1 million

per year but in 1981 ibm signed on to

use oracle and the company's sales

doubled every year for the next

seven years ellison soon renamed the

company after its best-selling product

now his various financial interests from

cloud computing to hydroponics have

netted him 83.6 billion dollars

this is up more than 20 billion dollars

since 2019.

warren buffett the oracle of omaha is

known for his amazing ability to pick

stocks with incredible accuracy

born in nebraska in 1930 warren buffett

demonstrated keen business abilities at

a young age

he formed buffett partnership limited in

1956

and by 1965 he had assumed control of

berkshire hathaway

overseeing the growth of a conglomerate

with holdings in the media

insurance energy and food and beverage

industries buffett became one of the

world's richest men

and a celebrated philanthropist the

90-year-old nebraska native has a net

worth of 84.6 billion dollars

this is an impressive feat though in

2019 he was the third richest person in

the world

in 2020 he has fallen three spots making

him the sixth richest person

on earth coming in at number five is

facebook founder and ceo

mark zuckerberg facebook has more than

two billion unique monthly visitors

making it by far one of the most visited

websites on earth

all of that attention and raw consumer

data translates into huge

advertisement revenue for zuckerberg the

36 year old has a net worth of 99.2

billion dollars

up more than 30 billion dollars since

last year to put this in perspective

zuckerberg makes the equivalent of more

than 1.7 million dollars an hour

compared to the american federal minimum

wage of 7.25 cents an

hour zuckerberg is making an absolute

incredible amount of money

bill gates was the third richest man in

the world for many years

the founder and former ceo of microsoft

has already given more than a third of

his net worth to charities

through the bill and melinda gates

foundation but despite this

the 65 year old is worth a whopping 119

billion dollars

many people believe that gates set the

model for the ethical billionaire he

spearheaded the giving pledge along with

warren buffett which encourages

billionaires to give the majority of

their wealth away

while they are still alive he also

approves of more intensive taxation on

billionaires and these days

focuses more on philanthropy than on

day-to-day operations at microsoft

you may not have heard of bernard arno

but you've certainly seen his products

sported by celebrities and

ultra wealthy clientele all over the

world the luxury group he overseas

lvmh is the parent company of brands

like louis vuitton muay shendon

and hennessey cognac arno controls about

half of lvmh which had a revenue of 53

billion euros in 2019

making him the richest man in france his

total net worth is currently 148.4

billion dollars positioning him

as the second wealthiest person in the

world in addition to lvmh

arno oversees further investment and

holding vehicles

group unknown has invested in netflix

and blue capital

and also took a major stake in french

food chain carrefour

in addition he has invested in boo.com

and a variety of other online ventures

as well as buying princess yachts

outright

jeff bezos is the ceo and founder of

amazon.com

he was the richest man in the world

until january 2021 when he was barely

overtaken by elon musk regardless bezos

made an unbelievable amount of money

this year as brick and mortar shops

closed their doors during the pandemic

amazon was in a unique position to

attract more business

as a result jeff bezos gained about 87

billion dollars for a total net worth of

184.6 billion dollars

this is even after a costly divorce in

2019

that cost bezos roughly half of his

amazon shares

without the divorce his wealth would be

truly unbelievable

due to the severe adversity suffered

during 2020 many have called upon bezos

to donate some of his incredible wealth

to charity in the last calendar year his

ex-wife mackenzie bezos gave away 4.2

billion dollars

whereas jeff bezos only gave away 791

million

this is equal to less than .0042

of his net worth elon musk had one of

the best years of his life

at least financially speaking the ceo of

tesla and spacex gained more than 150

billion dollars in 2020 alone

with a net worth of 185 billion dollars

musk is now the richest person in the

world

in just under a month musk surpassed

both mark zuckerberg

bill gates and as of january 2021 jeff

bezos

this was largely due to tesla's

inclusion on the exclusive s

p 500 meaning that many people with

index funds will begin passively

investing in tesla stock

in addition the incoming biden

administration is viewed as more

friendly toward green investment

so wall street is piling money into

industries like solar power

and electric vehicles both of which

benefited tesla

musk has gained more wealth over the

past 12 months than bill gates's entire

net worth of 132 billion dollars

musk famously earns his billions without

taking a paycheck from tesla

refusing his 56 000 minimum salary as

ceo

every year in january 2018 tesla

announced it would pay musk nothing for

the next 10 years

no salary bonuses or stock until the

company reached a 100 billion

market cap this means musk has very

little cash on hand

almost all of his assets are tied up in

tesla stock