Top 10 Richest Man in the World: Who Is No. 1 Wealthiest Person?

Top 10 Richest Man in the World: Billionaires shape the economy, politics, and philanthropy.

Forbes predicts 2,668 billionaires in 2022.

The affluent belong to a more exclusive club and have more power.

Many of these billionaires are founders of technology firms who still spend heavily on their companies.

They can still borrow against their wealth to postpone selling stock, postponing (or eliminating for heirs) capital gains taxes.

Some multi-billionaires on this list have paid no income tax in recent years due to tax deductions.

With so much wealth in publicly listed stocks, the wealthiest can change with market values.

Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla Inc. (TSLA) and the world's richest person, saw his net worth rise in 2021 thanks to a rise in Tesla's share price (he owns 16 percent of the firm). Tesla shares rose about 50 percent in 2021.

Mark Zuckerberg fell out of the top 10 in 2022 when Meta's share price collapsed after a weak earnings release. In 2022, Zuckerberg's wealth drops by $54 billion.

As of the same date, here are the 10 richest persons on earth.

10. Steve Ballmer

After Bill Gates persuaded him to drop out of Stanford University's MBA program, Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980.

He was the company's thirty-first employee. In the year 2000, Ballmer succeeded Gates as CEO of Microsoft.

He maintained the role until 2014 when he stepped down. Ballmer led Microsoft's $8.5 billion purchase of Skype in 2011.

Ballmer is the software giant's greatest individual shareholder, with a 4 percent stake in the company.

He bought the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team for $2 billion in 2014, shortly after stepping down as Microsoft CEO.

During their time at Harvard University, Ballmer and Gates shared a dorm and were on the same floor.

During Ballmer's term as CEO, the “brotherly” connection between the two became strained as he began pushing the tech corporation into products, such as the Surface tablet and the Windows mobile phone.

9. Mukesh Ambani

Mukesh Ambani, the son of a trade firm clerk, was born in British-controlled Yemen.

Dhirubhai Ambani, his father, returned to India the next year, residing in a two-room Mumbai apartment with his family and starting a spice trading business.

Dhirubhai Ambani established his first textile factory in 1966, and his firm, Reliance Industries, was launched on the Mumbai stock exchange in 1977, attracting a large and loyal shareholder base.

Mukesh Ambani graduated from the University of Mumbai with a degree in chemical engineering. Since 1977, he has been a member of Reliance's board of directors.

Mukesh Ambani enrolled at Stanford University in 1979 to seek a master's degree in business administration but dropped out in 1981 without receiving a diploma, returning to India to lead Reliance's expansion into petrochemicals, oil refining, and oil and gas drilling.

After Dhirubhai Ambani died of a stroke in 2002, Mukesh Ambani and his brother Anil took over as joint CEOs of Reliance Industries.

As the brothers fought for control, their mother mediated a 2005 agreement that split the firm in half, with Mukesh keeping the refining, petrochemicals, oil and gas, and textile activities, and Anil's group getting the telecom, electricity, entertainment, and financial services assets.

The feuding lasted until 2010 when the brothers settled a legal battle over natural gas and dissolved the 2005 settlement's non-compete restrictions.

Mukesh and Anil Ambani appeared to bury the hatchet in 2013 with the first contract between their separate companies' subsidiaries: a $220 million deal to share a fiberoptic network.

84 Ambani is a member of the World Economic Forum's board of directors. 89 On behalf of his company, he established the Reliance Foundation in 2010 to promote rural development, health, and education.

8. Gautam Adani

In March 2022, Gautam Adani, the founder of the Adani Group, surpassed Mukesh Ambani as Asia's richest person.

Adani owns a 75 percent investment in Adani Enterprises, Adani Power, and Adani Transmissions through his Adani Group, as well as a 65 percent stake in Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone, a 61 percent share in Adani Green Energy, and a 37 percent stake in Adani Total Gas through his Adani Group.

7. Sergey Brin

Sergey Brin was born in Moscow, Russia, and moved to the United States with his family when he was six years old.

Brin became Google's president of technology after Eric Schmidt took over as CEO in 2001, after co-founding Google with Larry Page in 1998.

He maintained the same position at the Alphabet holding company after it was founded in 2015 until Sundar Pichai took over as CEO in 2019.

6. Larry Page

Larry Page, like several other software millionaires on our list, began his journey to fame and money in a college dorm room.

Page and his friend Sergey Brin came up with the idea of better internet data extraction while at Stanford University in 1995.

The duo created “Backrub,” a new search engine technology named after its capacity to examine “backing links.”

From there, Page and Brin founded Google in 1998, with Page acting as CEO until 2001, and then again between 2011 and 2019.

5. Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett submitted his first tax return at age 14, citing paper route profits.

53 He bought Berkshire Hathaway shares in 1962 and became the majority shareholder by 1965.

1967: He added insurance and investments.

As of May 5, 2022, a single Class A share of Berkshire Hathaway stock was trading for more than $481,000.

4. Bill Gates

Bill Gates and Paul Allen worked on microcomputer software at Harvard in 1975.

Gates dropped out of Harvard after this project's success and co-founded Microsoft with Allen.

3. Bernard Arnault

French national Bernard Arnault is LVMH's chair and CEO.

Louis Vuitton, Hennessey, Marc Jacobs, and Sephora are LVMH brands.

2. Jeff Bezos

After leaving D.E. Shaw, Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com in a Seattle garage in 1994.

His old boss David E. Shaw wasn't interested in an online bookstore.

1. Elon Musk

Elon Musk was born in South Africa and studied physics and economics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Musk deferred his Ph.D. physics study at Stanford to establish Zip2, an early internet navigation service.

He reinvested a portion of the startup's revenues, which became PayPal Holdings Inc. (PYPL).

Elon Musk