Gates no longer the richest, toppled by Buffett

American investment guru Warren Buffett has been named as the richest person in the world, knocking his friend Bill Gates off the top spot for the first time in 13 years.

Buffett, the 77-year-old boss of the Berkshire Hathaway company, saw his　wealth jump from $52bn last year to $62bn because of the rising value of his shares in the firm.

Microsoft co-founder Gates, whose fortune rose by $2bn to $58bn was pushed into third position in Forbes' 2008 list of the World's Billionaires.
He was pipped to second spot by Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim Helu, who has an estimated net worth of $60bn.

Buffett announced in 2006 that he would give the majority of his fortune to charity. Ironically, most of it will benefit the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

For the first time ever, there are more than 1,000 billionaires on the list with 1,125 making the grade compared with 946 in 2007.
Their total net worth stands at a whopping $4.4 trillion.

And the average billionaire - if there is such a thing - is worth $3.9bn, that's $250 million more than last year

The US still has the most billionaires with 469, but Russia replaced Germany as the second-placed country with 87 billionaires.

This year's Top Ten contains a record-breaking four Indians, including steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, who is Britain's richest resident.

The last 12 months also saw an unprecedented number of young billionaires, with Forbes listing 50 individuals under the age of 40.

The world's youngest billionaire is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, ranked 785 with $1.5bn to his name. Not bad for a 23-year-old!

The Top 10 World Billionaires Ranking:

1 Name: Warren Buffett
Citizenship: US 　
Age: 77
Net Worth($bil):62.0
Source: Berkshire Hathaway

2 Name: Carlos Slim Helu
Citizenship: Mexico 　
Age: 68
Net Worth($bil):60.0
Source: Telecom

3 Name: Bill Gates
Citizenship: US
Age: 52
Net Worth($bil):58.0
Source: Microsoft

4 Name: Lakshmi Mittal
Citizenship: India
Age: 57
Net Worth($bil): 45.0
Source: Steel

5 Name: Mukesh Ambani
Citizenship: India
Age: 50
Net Worth($bil): 43.0
Source: petrochemicals

6 Name: Anil Ambani
Citizenship: India
Age: 48
Net Worth($bil): 42.0
Source: diversified

7 Name: Ingvar Kamprad
Citizenship: Sweden
Age: 81
Net Worth($bil): 31.0
Source: Ikea

8 Name: KP Singh
Citizanship: India
Age: 76
Net Worth($bil): 30.0
Source: real estate

9 Name: Oleg Deripaska
Citizenship: Russia
Age: 40
Net Worth($bil): 28.0
Source: Russian Aluminum

10 Name: Karl Albrecht
Citizenship: Germany
Age: 88
Net Worth($bil): 27.0
Source: Aldi (Retailing)

以上です。