Gates loses 'World's richest' crown

A Mexican telecoms tycoon has dethroned Bill Gates as the World's richest man. Carlos Slim ended Gates's 13-year reign thanks to a 26 per cent surge in the stock price of his company America Movil during the second quarter. Slim boosted his personal net worth to $67.8bn compared to last year’s $30bn. Gates was worth $59.2bn …

[Matt Bucknall]

IKEA?

I thought Ingvar Kamprad, Ikea founder overtook Gates at some point?

[zxcvbnm]

$13 trillion?

$13 is not 8% of the usa economy. More like $1 trillion. Otherwise you are suggesting the usa economy is $100 trillion. Does this really seem likely?

[Nexox Enigma]

Maths?

I fail to see how 17 times ~$60bn is $13tn. I think that $13tn is the GDP of the US, while Bill would have to increase his net worth to $1.04tn, which is about 17 times his current worth.

Either way, It would suck to be Gates... Can you imagine /only/ having $60bn to your name? Then again, if I had that much I would be able to buy that new laptop I've been drooling over...

[Dillon Pyron]

Carlos Obredor

Had Snr Obredor won the presidency, Snr Slim would be substantially poorer. Obredor's proposal was for a tax of as much at 75% at the highest level, with "wealth" taxes to boot. And he would have taxed the snot out of large corporations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: IKEA?

"I thought Ingvar Kamprad, Ikea founder overtook Gates at some point?"

The year before last, I think - I seem to recall that it was largely due to the dollar/krone exchange rate at the time, meaning that Kamprad's net worth was higher than that of Chairman Bill for a while.

[Hans Averdung]

Obrador, Slim, 250K votes, tropical fascism

Had Sr. Obrador (Andres Manuel, not Carlos, btw) we would ALL be substantially poorer down here, cf. Argentina, Venezuela, other Latin American countries who have succumbed to our particular brand of political lunacy. We were immensely lucky in the end, and 250K people separated us from Chavismo in the better case, Yugoslavia in the more extreme one. I much prefer reading about Mr. Slim, whose customer I have happily remained (Good broadband is devilishly hard to get in Mexico City if you don't choose Telmex) than having to read about Mr. Obrador while in exile from his yellow hordes. If a MExican is the world's richest man, more power to him. May the rest of us soon find the way he has found.

[Rich Bryant]

re: Carlos Obredor

"Had Snr Obredor won the presidency, Snr Slim would be substantially poorer. Obredor's proposal was for a tax of as much at 75% at the highest level, with "wealth" taxes to boot. And he would have taxed the snot out of large corporations."

And that right there is why he didn't win. You can't threaten to tax corporations and still get elected. See also Murdoch, R.

[Darren Hill]

Re: $13 trillion?

"$13 is not 8% of the usa economy. More like $1 trillion. Otherwise you are suggesting the usa economy is $100 trillion. Does this really seem likely?"

This could be the article says Mexico's economy, not the USA economy :) They are distinct countries, even if the some of the populus of one would like it to be otherwise.

[Anonymous Coward]

So what about the charity?

And here's me believing the PR that Gates giving it all away! FFS his worth has gone up by 10 billion this year!

Can anyone explain this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ikea's wealth is fudged.

Ingvar Kamprad did over take for a brief moment or so the rumor went; however most of the money made by IKEA is put into a tax free ‘charitable’ fund (much larger than even the gates' foundation). The Ikea 'family' over see this fund but I think no one person can claim it as his or her own personal wealth.

[Tom]

Easy

"FFS his worth has gone up by 10 billion this year!

Can anyone explain this?"

Have you seen the price of M$ software lately?

[Dave]

Sums, facts, accuracy

Using the CIA World Factbook:

USA GDP is $13.13Tn (2006 est)

8% of which would be $1.05Tn

Given Billy boy's current 0.06)Tn ~17 times

So the text "he'd have to increase his wealth by 17times to £13t..." had the multiplier correct, but the result wrong

"...17 times to $1.03t..." would be accurate on both counts

Mexico GDP is$1.149Tn (2006 estimate, purchasing power parity)

8% of which is $0.092Tn (i.e. $92 Billion), this is a long way over El Senor's $68Bn

[Daniel Ballado-Torres]

Wow.

Of course ... Slim has the local telecom market (Telmex), 80+% of the mobile market (Telcel) and the America Movil conglomerate has taken over many mobile operators in Latin America. I remember he even took over one of the Baby Bells (Bellsouth/Telmex), CompUSA, Prodigy (which he used to re-brand the ISP service in Mexico) and some other stuff. As much as I despise the Telmex monopoly, it is impressive to see a Mexican entrepreneur reaching the #1.

As for somebody mentioning "we'd all be poorer with Obrador as president" ... I'd like to see him tell that to the public school teachers that have recently got their retirement plan axed. Or remember the corn/tortilla price spike. Or the military police state in effect in 3 states because of "war on drugs". It looks like we got our own version of "Dubya" over here...

And as an interesting side note, Slim was an Obrador supporter. I doubt he would've done so if all that "tax corps to hell" were true. What he would have done was remove the "tax evasion paradise" large corporations have over here, and thats what the corporations didn't want.

[DiViDeD]

Are you sure?

"$13 is not 8% of the usa economy"

Dunno, sounds about right to me. Makes the whole of the US worth around $162.50. Tell you what, I'll give you a hundred quid for it, used tenners, and you get to keep the chimp. Can't say fairer than that.

I'll get me coat

[oliver]

Are you sure?

No way - the chimp goes or nothing DiViDeD