Carlos Slim
According to the Forbes list of the world's billionaires in 2011, the richest man in the world is the Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, who for the second year remains at the top of the list of 1.209 world billionaires (these are those whose wealth is measured by 9 zeros - 1.000.000.000). He earned $20,5 billion last year, increasing his wealth to $74 billion.
Bill Gates
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is in second place as he increased his wealth to 56 billion from 53 billion last year. Forbes estimates that Gates would be the richest man in the world if he had not donated 28 billion to his foundations.
Investor Warren Buffett is again in third place with 50 billion, compared to last year's 47 billion.
Christy Walton
The wealth of the world's billionaires increased by 25 percent - to 4,5 trillion (1.000.000.000.000) dollars, which exceeds the gross domestic product of Germany. Their average wealth increased to 3,7 billion, from last year's 3,5 billion.
1. Carlos Slim Helu
74 billion dollars
Telecom, Mexico
2. Bill Gates
56 billion
Microsoft, USA
3. Warren Buffett
50 billion
investments, USA
4. Bernard Arnault
41 billion
luxury goods, France
5. Lawrence Larry Ellison
39,5 billion
Oracle, USA
6. Lakshmi Mittal
31.1 billion
the world's largest steel producer, India
7. Amancio Ortega
31 billion dollars
Fashion, retail, Spain
8. Eike Batista
30 billion
Mining, oil, Brazil
9. Mukesh Ambani
27 billion
petrochemicals, oil and gas, india
10. Christy Walton, widow of John Walton and family
26,5 billion
trade, USA
The number of super-rich women increased to 102 from 89 last year.
47 left the list, 10 died, and 42 returned to it.
In China, the number of billionaires has doubled and now there are 115; 101 live in Russia. There are more billionaires in Moscow (79) than in New York (58).
India increased its number of billionaires by 6 and now has 55, but their wealth on average is greater than that of Chinese billionaires by 4,5:2,5 billion dollars.
There are 30 billionaires in Brazil.
Brazil, Russia, India and China "produced" half of the 214 new billionaires in the world, twice as many as last year when there were 97 new super-rich. There were 105 nouveau riches in the Asia-Pacific region last year. This region now has 332 billionaires, significantly more than the previous year when there were 234, or in the crisis of 2009 when there were 130. For the first time in the last ten years, there are more billionaires in Asia (332) than in Europe (300) .
Before this year, the US alone had more than 100 billionaires. China now has 115 and Russia 101. The number of billionaires in America increased by only 6 percent (there are 413 of them), in China by 47 percent and in Russia by 30 percent. America got 2011 new ones in 23, China got 54, and Russia got 31.
The Russians are getting rich the most because of the rising prices of natural resources, and the Chinese more because of the aggressive expansion of production. Nevertheless, the American rich "substantially" lead compared to the others: among the 20 richest people in the world, 8 are Americans, and of the 4,5 trillion dollars owned by billionaires, 1,5 trillion are held by Americans.
According to Forbes, the most billionaires were created in the fields of energy, fashion, trade, production, finance and in companies with diverse activities.
It seems that Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, whose wealth increased by 2011 percent in 238 and jumped to $13,5 billion last year, became the fastest growing. By the way, he said about the first users of Facebook to a journalist from the Havington Post and the New Yorker: "'They trust me, you stupid jerks.'"
