Bill Gates is still the richest man in America for the 20th year in a row as declared by Forbes magazine in its Forbes annual list published Monday, Yahoo! reported Sept. 16.
Bill Gates was declared the richest man in the United States by Forbes magazine in its annual list that features the top 400 richest men in, making this his 20th year to land the top spot.
Despite his praiseworthy work as a philanthropist and his act of giving away most of his wealth, Bill Gates is still getting richer all the time, and Forbes said that his wealth is not mainly due to Microsoft.
Forbes reported that Bill Gate's Microsoft only accounts for one-fifth of his wealth of $72 billion, adding that Microsoft did help Gates out in August, when Steve Baller resigned from his position. Shares reportedly ticked up to over $36 on that news and are still trading at over $32.
Instead, Gates made the majority of his wealth though his investment firm Cascade, which owns portions of businesses like Deere $ Co., the Canadian National Railway and Mexican Coke bottler Femsa, leading many reports to claim that his gesture to diversify from Microsoft was certainly a smart move to increase his wealth.
Despite reportedly giving away $28 billion to a variety of charities from 2007 up to 2012, Bill Gates managed to become $9.8 billion richer since the beginning of 2013, according to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index. In addition, Gates became $7 billion richer at the start of 2013 than he was at the start of 2012.
Bill Gates is a proud founder of Giving Pledge, an organization where wealthy people vow to give away majority of their wealth to charities and people who need financial help.
Meanwhile, on second place on Forbes' list of wealthiest Americans is Warren Buffett, who is said to be worth $58.5 billion. He is followed by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who is worth $41 billion.
The joint wealth of the Forbes' 400 richest men hit $2 trillion in 2013, up from $1.7 trillion a year ago. The magazine even recognized this as the highest combined value ever.
Meanwhile, some economists have speculated that the income of the wealthy may have surged in 2012 because they cashed in stock holdings to avoid higher capital gains taxes that began in January.
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