Bill Gates Takes Back Title Of World’s Richest, Bumping Carlos Slim

Bill Gates is once again the world’s richest person, thanks in large part to a slide over the past few days in the price of Mexican stocks. Gates bumps Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim from his perch as world’s richest, a post Slim has held for the past four years.

The swap happened at the end of the trading day on Monday, after America Movil shares dropped 0.24% from Friday’s closing price. That tiny shift–one quarter of one percent–dragged the biggest part of Slim’s fortune down by $82.7 million. Meanwhile, Microsoft MSFT -0.73% shares rose 0.6%–yes, six tenths of one percent–from Friday’s closing price to Monday’s close, lifting this portion of Gates’ fortune by $88.4 million. With other holdings accounted for, Gates took the lead by just a hair, in billionaire terms: $140 million. Gates finished Monday’s trading with a fortune that Forbes estimates at $70 billion vs. Slim with $69.86 billion.

Slim’s fall from the top continued on Tuesday, when shares of America Movil sank another 1.55% by day’s end, dragging that piece of Slim’s fortune down by $529 million. The price of Microsoft dipped only slightly in Tuesday’s trading, 0.6%. That sent Gates’ stake in Microsoft down by $96.8 million. All in all, the gap between the billionaires’ fortunes widened to $504 million- real money for most of us, but not much to these two. Gates ended the day with a fortune we estimate at $69.9 billion vs. Slim with $69.4 billion.