Bill Gates regains lead from Mexico's Carlos Slim as tech company stars climb Forbes list.
The United States had a 1 per cent reason to feel smug yesterday as the Forbes 2014 billionaires list saw Microsoft founder Bill Gates regain the top spot from Mexico's Carlos Slim Helu, while the land of opportunity again outstripped all others for numbers of residents with a billion or more in their bank accounts.
Ballooning share values helped tech stars generally make handy progress up the gilded billionaire's pole with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, jumping from 66th place last year to 21st.
Jan Koum and Brian Acton entered the list for the first time at numbers 202 and 551 respectively, thanks to Facebook's recent US$19 billion purchase of WhatsApp, the messaging app they created.
Gates, who recently stepped down as chairman of the Microsoft board but agreed to become more involved again in its daily management as the top tech adviser, saw his wealth soar to US$76 billion in 2013, according to Forbes. Thus, he leapfrogged Helu, the industrialist and mobile-phone tycoon with holdings that include a growing stake in the New York Times, who was pegged at US$72 billion.
