Bill Gates joins Jeff Bezos in centibillionaire club

Bloomberg tracks the fortunes of some 2 800 billionaires. Of those, 145 are worth at least US$10-billion, making them decabillionaires. Now, the world contains two centibillionaires simultaneously.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, once the world’s richest person, has again eclipsed the $100-billion threshold, joining Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos in the exclusive club, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Gates’s fortune, now $100-billion on the nose, hasn’t reached such heights since the dot-com boom, when Bezos was only beginning his march up the world’s wealth rankings. The Amazon founder is now worth $145.6-billion, having added $20.7-billion this year alone, while Gates has gained $9.5-billion.

These two fortunes underscore a widening wealth gap in the US, where those with the most capital are accumulating riches the fastest. It’s also a worldwide trend. France’s Bernard Arnault has an $86.2-billion fortune, equal to about 3% of his country’s economy. The net worth of Spain’s Amancio Ortega represents 5% of that nation’s GDP. And then there’s Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose worth about a third of Georgia’s GDP.

The Gates and Bezos mega-fortunes may not last long. Gates has donated more than $35-billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and said he intends to give away at least half of his wealth. Bezos, meanwhile, may be about to cede some of his fortune for a different reason: he and his wife Mackenzie are divorcing.

Bloomberg Billionaires Index ranks the world’s 500 wealthiest individuals. This year’s biggest losers in that group include Tesla CEO Elon Musk.  — Reported by Tom Metcalf and Devon Pendleton, (c) 2019 Bloomberg LP