It's been almost 11 years since Bill Gates stopped working full-time at Microsoft in 2008, and stepped down as chairman of the company in 2014. In recent years, Gates has devoted himself to philanthropy. But even though he stopped working at Microsoft and spends a large part of his money, he is still the richest person in the world.
According to Bloomberg, Bill Gates' fortune is currently worth $110 billion. He has once again dethroned Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon, who has a fortune of about $109 billion. Since 2008, Gates has been "defeated" many times by Bezos, investor Warren Buffett and tycoon Carlos Slim.
Despite selling about $35 billion in Microsoft stock to fund the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he still owns a huge amount of Microsoft stock. Bloomberg reported on Microsoft's most recent surprise success, where it won a $10 billion Pentagon contract and a corresponding boost to the company's stock price.
The share price was at $136 on June 22 and now stands just below $150.
On the other hand, Bezos' fortune has taken two major blows in recent months, as he lost several billion after Amazon's poor performance in the third quarter and about $35 billion from his now ex-wife, Mackenzie Bezos.
The last time Gates made headlines was when, speaking at the New York Times DealBook conference, he questioned candidate Elizabeth Warren's proposed sweeping estate tax.
"I've paid over $10 billion in taxes, I've paid more than anyone in taxes. If I had to pay $20 billion, that's fine," Gates said, "but when you say I'm going to have to pay $100 billion, I start to worry about what's left for me."
“I’m always willing to meet with people, even if we have different opinions,” Warren responded to Gates via Twitter. “If given the chance, I’d like to explain to you exactly how much you’ll pay in my estate taxes (I promise it’s not $100 billion.)”
The first time Gates took the title of the richest person in the world was in 1995 – when he had a fortune of $12.9 billion.
