Bill Gates unseats Jeff Bezos as world’s richest person according to Bloomberg

The New York Post reports that Mr Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has a net worth of $US110 billion ($A162 billion), which topped Mr Bezos’ total worth of $US109 billion ($160 billion), according to the index.

Mr Gates briefly held the top spot last month after Amazon suffered a 28 per cent drop in profits the three months ending in September, but quickly lost the spot again to Mr Bezos, CNN reported.

Mr Gates’ ascent to the top spot was spurred by a 48 per cent increase in Microsoft shares, which lifted his net worth, according to CNN.

Mr Bezos’ wealth was also impacted by his divorce settlement with his former wife MacKenzie.

Their divorce settlement left her with 19.7 million shares of Amazon.com valued at more than $38 billion, according to Bloomberg.

TEN RICHEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD

1 — Bill Gates (Microsoft founder) $110b ($A162 billion)

2 — Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder) $109b ($A160 billion)

3 — Bernard Arnault (LVMH Moët Hennessy) $103b ($A151 billion)

4 — Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) $86.6b ($A127 billion)

5 — Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) $74.5b ($A110 billion)

6 — Amancio Ortega (Zara) $67.6b ($A100 billion)

7 — Larry Page (Google) $64.3b ($A94.5 billion)

8 — Sergey Brin (Google) $62.4b ($A92 billion)

9 — Charles Koch (Koch Industries) $61.7b ($A90 billion)

10 — Julia Flesher Koch (David Koch’s widow) $61.7b ($A90 billion)

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and is republished here with permission