insiderblmBill Gates, one of the world’s richest men, has said he warned Donald Trump about the threat of a global pandemic during a 2016 meeting with the US president-elect in Trump Tower.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to find faster ways to develop vaccines and create disease-tracking systems, but Gates still has regrets.
The Microsoft founder turned philanthropist told The Wall Street Journal: “Looking back, I wish I had done more to call attention to the danger.”
Gates was criticised by Trump supporters in April after attacking the president’s decision to slash WHO funding on Twitter. “Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds,” he said.
While Bill and Melinda have pledged to give most of their $100bn-plus fortune to charity, for now the Microsoft founder remains one of the richest people in the world. Here is who joins him in the exclusive club:
1. Jeff Bezos, $145bn
The former hedge fund manager turned online book seller started Amazon in his garage in 1994. Bezos has invested heavily in space technology and also owns The Washington Post newspaper.
2. Bill Gates, $106.6bn
A permanent fixture at the top end of Forbes’ list for the past 20 years, the Microsoft founder has sold or given away much of his stake in the company – he owns just 1% of Microsoft – and now focuses predominantly on his philanthropic work.Bill Murray awarded top humor prize
3. Bernard Arnault, $91.6bn
Arnault is the wealthiest European on the list. The Frenchman oversees an empire of more than 60 brands including Louis Vuitton and Sephora. And he recently overtook Bill Gates to become the second richest man on the planet.
4. Mark Zuckerberg, $78.6bn
Zuckerberg famously started Facebook in 2004 at the age of 19 and now is among the top five richest men in the world.
5. Warren Buffett, $68.8bn
Now in his ninth decade, the Berkshire Hathaway chief executive, known as the “Oracle of Omagh” is one of the most successful investors of all time. Like Gates he has pledged to give away more than 99% of his fortune to charity.
6. Larry Ellison, $67.3bn
Co-founder of software firm Oracle, Ellison stepped down as CEO in 2014 but still serves as chairman of the board and chief technology officer.
7. Steve Ballmer, $66.4bn
The former Microsoft CEO led the company from 2000 to 2014 after joining in 1980 as employee number 30, having dropped out of Stanford University’s MBA programme. The same year he retired from Microsoft he bought the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers for $2bn, says Forbes.
8. Larry Page, $63.3bn
In 1998, Page co-founded Google with business partner Sergey Brin. He stepped down as CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, in December last year but is still a board member.
9. Amancio Ortega, $61.9bn
Ortega stepped down as chairman of Inditex, known for its Zara brand, in 2011 but he still owns nearly 60% of its shares.
10. Sergey Brin, $61bn
The Google co-founder stepped down as president of Alphabet in December, although remains a board member. He spends a lot of time on Alphabet’s moonshot research lab X.
What about the UK?
James Ratcliffe, the founder, chairman and majority owner of chemical powerhouse Ineos Group, is the richest person in the UK, according to Forbes.
Ratcliffe was raised in a Manchester council house, and has climbed the chemical corporate ladder to amass a personal worth of $13.9bn.
Shortly behind him in the UK are the billionaire Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja brothers, who control the Hinduja Group conglomerate, and are worth $12.4bn combined.
The Hinduja Group is a family business originally founded in Mumbai in 1914, and now “has interests around the world including in oil and gas, banking, IT and property”, the BBC added.
The richest woman in the UK is Denise Coates, the founder and joint chief executive of online gambling company Bet365. She is worth $7.7bn, making her the 220th richest person in the world.
Who is the richest person of all time?
Bezos has been declared not only the wealthiest person alive – but of all time.
But while his estimated fortune is technically the largest ever accrued by one individual, this does not take into account inflation or a number of other factors, including how wealth is actually measured.
With a fortune of around $400bn, Mansu Musa 1 of Mail, the first king of Timbuktu, may not be a household name, but by most estimates is the richest person who ever lived.
Deriving his wealth from his country’s vast salt and gold deposits, which at one time accounted for half the world’s supply, Musa ruled West Africa’s Malian Empire in the early 14th century, constructing hundreds of mosques across the continent, many of which survive to this day.
With a fortune estimated at between $300-$400bn in today’s money, Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov (Nicolas II) of Russia was deposed and subsequently executed by the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution.
The Independent notes that, following his canonisation by the Russian Orthodox Church, he is also the richest saint in history.
Excluding kings, princes and those who inherited their wealth, the list of the world’s richest-ever men – and they are always men – is dominated by the so-called robber barons of 19th and early 20th century America.
Often cited as the richest person who ever lived, oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller was the first person to have a net worth of over $1bn in the money of the time.
At the time of this death his estate was worth an estimated $340bn in today’s money, almost 2% of total US economic output.
With an estimated fortune of $310bn in today’s money, steel magnate and Rockefeller contemporary Andrew Carnegie sold his Carnegie Steel Company to JP Morgan for $480m in 1901, and later made his name with his philanthropic donations.
Automobile pioneer Henry Ford, who perfected the production line and has become a by-word for American entrepreneurship, had a fortune of around $199bn at the time of his death in 1947.
