Bill Gates still richest man in U.S.
New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Microsoft founder Bill Gates kept his top spot on Forbes Magazine’s list of 400 richest Americans with an estimated wealth of $59 billion.
Despite his philanthropy, Gates’ value increased by $3 billion, mainly due to an increase in value of Microsoft’s share.
Among his charitable causes are ending polio, which had resulted in Gates giving away $28 billion, wiping out malaria, which costs him at least $1 billion a year, and helping high schools by extending $2 billion in grants from 2000 to 2008.
Only one fourth of Gates’ fortune is tied up with Microsoft. The rest are in private equity, global stocks, bonds and private companies.
Second on the list is investor Warren Buffett, who actually suffered a decline from last year, with an estimated value of $39 billion. Another investor, George Soros, is in third place with a worth of $22 billion.
Buffett and Soros are known backers of left-leaning policies in Washington.
President Barack Obama, who recently pushed for higher taxes on wealthy Americans, based the proposed policy on Buffett’s observation that his tax rate is lesser than that of employees of his company, Berkshire Hathaway.
Soros is a major donor to the Democrats and is a sponsor of Open Society Foundations, which pushes for human rights and liberal democracy.
The combined wealth of the richest 400 Americans on the Forbes list reached $1.5 trillion – which is roughly the size of the U.S. budget deficit. While the rest of the country continues to reel from the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis and the ongoing recession, the top 400 increased their wealth by 12 percent this year.
The continuing influence of social media on global economy is evident with the rise of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to 14th place after his fortunes grew by $10.6 billion.
Besides their tons of money, another common factor among these richest Americans is their willingness to part with the bulk of their wealth. Some of them such as Gates, Buffett and Zuckerberg are signatories to the Giving Pledge in which they vowed to donate the majority of their money to charity during their lifetime or after death.
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