In a recent reports on Forbes billionaires list, the richest billionaires in the world are mostly tech moguls, and this list has familiar faces like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Ma and a host of others.
Scroll on to see the world’s 13 richest tech billionaires, ranked in ascending order.
13. Masayoshi Son. Net worth: $21.6 billion
CEO and founder of the Japanese megafund Softbank, Masayoshi Son has pumped money into high-profile tech companies like Uber and WeWork.
This year Softbank took a hit following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, due to its links to Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
12. Elon Musk. Net worth: $22.3 billion
Musk remains lavishly wealthy, however it was a wild year for the Tesla CEO, with numerous scandals and Tesla’s stock zooming up and down in tune with his erratic behaviour. Both Tesla and his rocket company SpaceX laid off significant chunks of their staff in January of this year.
11. Azim Premji. Net worth: $22.6 billion
Azim Premji, is regarded as the “Bill Gates of India” is the founder of IT company Wipro.
10. Michael Dell. Net worth: $34.3 billion
Michael Dell is the CEO of Dell Technologies, most of his fortunes are tied up in his private investment firm MSD Capital, according to Forbes.
9. Jack Ma. Net worth: $37.3 billion
Jack Ma is the richest man in China. He announced in September 2018 that in one year he would step down as the chairman of Alibaba – the largest e-commerce site in China – and be succeeded by CEO Daniel Zhang.
8. Ma Huateng. Net worth: $38.8 billion
Ma is chairman of Chinese tech giant Tencent. Tencent owns messenger service Wechat, which is more or less ubiquitous in China.
7. Steve Ballmer. Net worth: $41.2 billion
Ballmer left as CEO of Microsoft in 2014, but he still ranks highly on Forbes’ list at number 19. Ballmer and his wife Connie gave away $295 million to philanthropic causes in 2018.
6. Sergey Brin. Net worth: $49.8 billion
Sergey Brin, Google cofounder and current president of Google’s parent company Alphabet, he still takes an active role in company all-hands meetings, according to reports which surfaced last year.
5. Larry Page. Net worth: $50.8 billion
Larry Page, the other Google cofounder, outranks Sergey Brin by a narrow $1 billion.
4. Mark Zuckerberg. Net worth: $62.3 billion
Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune sunk nearly $9 billion after last year’s scandal and he fell three places down the ranking. He was also usurped as the youngest self-made billionaire this year by Kylie Jenner.
3. Larry Ellison. Net worth: $62.5 billion
Ellison is the founder and CTO of Silicon Valley’s major player Oracle. A two-time college dropout, Ellison was also appointed to Tesla’s board of directors late last year.
2. Bill Gates. Net worth: $96.5 billion
Microsoft cofounder, Bill Gates remains a board member at the company, but Forbes notes that he has sold or given away much of his stock, and owns just over 1{568489cf35ea458dc74a642d4e9df9f8045a1623c75cd416c14940fd0c12fbd1} of shares.
Known for his philanthropy, Forbes reports that Gates has donated $35.8 billion worth of Microsoft stock to his charitable organization, the Gates Foundation.
1. Jeff Bezos. Net worth: $131 billion
Jeff Bezos, is Amazon CEO, owner of the Washington Post, and richest man in the world.
Bezos was recently caught up in a firestorm after he announced his divorce from wife MacKenzie and texts from him to his reported lover Lauren Sanchez were leaked to the National Enquirer.
Bezos mounted his own investigation into how the paper got hold of the texts, and subsequently published a blog claiming that the Enquirer was blackmailing him with sensitive photographs.
Bezos also donated $2 billion to charity this year, pumping it into a fund to support underserved communities and education programs.