American Corporate Titans Dominate List Of The World's Wealthiest Self-Made Billionaires
NEW YORK, June 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- With a personal fortune totaling nearly US$86 billion, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates tops Wealth-X's list of the world's top 25 richest self-made billionaires.
American entrepreneurs like Gates dominate the Wealth-X list, claiming 14 of the 25 spots. The list features numerous notable American billionaires who are responsible for building some of the most successful companies in the world including Berkshire Hathaway, Oracle, and Google.
The combined wealth of the 14 Americans on the Wealth-X list is US$514.2 billion, which is greater than the GDP of Norway.
The technology sector has proved yet again to be an incubator of great fortunes with many on the list such as Oracle's Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba, China's e-commerce giant, amassing significant wealth by founding and building technology-based companies.
Below are the world's top 25 self-made billionaires:
| Rank |
Name |
Nationality |
Estimated Net Worth* |
| 1 |
William Gates III |
United States |
85.7 |
| 2 |
Warren Buffett |
United States |
70.1 |
| 3 |
Amancio Ortega |
Spain |
65.0 |
| 4 |
Lawrence Ellison |
United States |
51.5 |
| 5 |
Ingvar Kamprad |
Sweden |
48.1 |
| 6 |
Jeffrey Bezos |
United States |
39.8 |
| 7 |
Carlos Slim |
Mexico |
35.4 |
| 8 |
Mark Zuckerberg |
United States |
35.3 |
| 9 |
Wang Jianlin |
China |
35.2 |
| 10 |
Michael Bloomberg |
United States |
33.7 |
| 11 |
Lawrence Page |
United States |
31.3 |
| 12 |
Sergey Brin |
United States |
29.1 |
| 13 |
Lee Shau Kee |
Hong Kong |
28.3 |
| 14 |
Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud |
Saudi Arabia |
28.3 |
| 15 |
Jorge Paulo Lemann |
Brazil |
27.0 |
| 16 |
Jack Ma (Yun Ma) |
China |
26.7 |
| 17 |
Sheldon Adelson |
United States |
26.0 |
| 18 |
George Soros |
United States |
24.8 |
| 19 |
Leonardo Del Vecchio |
Italy |
23.0 |
| 20 |
Carl Icahn |
United States |
22.8 |
| 21 |
Steven Ballmer |
United States |
22.4 |
| 22 |
Philip Knight |
United States |
21.6 |
| 23 |
Patrick Drahi |
France/Israel |
21.0 |
| 24 |
Li Ka Shing |
Hong Kong |
20.1 |
| 25 |
Leonard Blavatnik |
United States |
20.1 |
*US$ billion
About Wealth-X
Wealth-X is the global authority on wealth intelligence, providing sales, marketing, strategy and compliance solutions to clients in the financial services, luxury, not-for-profit and education sectors. Its award-winning research and thought leadership are regularly cited by the world's media such as CNBC, Financial Times, Thomson Reuters and BBC. Wealth-X has more than 250 staff in 10 locations, including Singapore, London and New York.
SOURCE Wealth-X
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