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Mar 26

Bill Gates Dethroned as Richest Man

This article was written on July 03, 2007 by CyberNet.

After 13-years, Bill Gates is no longer considered the world’s richest man. Carlos Slim is his replacement, and it comes as no surprise as he is a Mexican telecommunications leader with a bank-busting net worth of $67.8 billion.

Bill Gates is worth a mere $59.2 billion, so the lead that Slim has is quite significant. Of course, if you’re gonna do a comparison like that you should also include philanthropy work. Bill Gates is reported to have given away more than $29 billion to charities since 2000, where Slim has decided to up his commitment from $4 billion to $10 billion over the next four years. That means in four years Slim will have donated 1/3 of what Bill Gates has already done by this year.

So what company does Carlos Slim own that made him so wealthy? It’s called AmÃ©rica MÃ³vil and offers telecommunication services around the world. There are more than 131 million subscribers, some of which reside here in the United States. In the U.S. it is not known as AmÃ©rica MÃ³vil, instead it is a subsidiary called Tracfone…ring a bell? That’s a popular pay-as-you-go service for cellphones which can be purchased in retail stores around the United States.

Around the world there are 946 billionaires according to the March 2007 report by Forbes, which combined have a net worth of $3.5 trillion. So where are you at on that list?