He lost $18 billion, but Bill Gates is still the richest man in the world, with a net worth of $40 billion, according to Forbes.com, which published its Billionaires List yesterday.
In fact it's a tough world for all the billionaires. This year's list has 30% fewer people, with an average net worth that fell 23% compared to last year. Of the 793 billionaires, only 44 managed to add to their fortunes in the last year.
To put this into perspective, if the top 25 richest people in the world lumped their net worth together, it would be only a little more than half of the ARRA stimulus package that President Obama recently signed. It would take the next 27 billionaires on the list to reach the $787 billion that ARRA is worth.
It has not yet been reported if Bill Gates will try the food stamp challenge as an austerity measure.
(pictured: a young Bill Gates)
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