Forbes rich list 2012: top 50
As Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim tops the Forbes rich list for a third year and British author JK Rowling slides off the billionaire's roster, here are the top 50 richest individuals for 2012.
Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim retained his position atop Forbes magazine's annual list of the world's billionaires on Wednesday with an estimated worth of $69 billion.Microsoft Corp cofounder Bill Gates ranked second at $61 billion and Warren Buffett third at $44 billion. France's Bernard Arnault, the richest person in Europe, repeated at No. 4. They were the same top four as last year.
The youngest self-made woman at age 41 was Spanx founder Sara Blakely, whose net worth of $1 billion from her business of making slimming undergarments affirmed there was profit in vanity. Blakely, ranking at No. 1,153, was among 104 women on the list.
Fifty-eight countries were represented on the list of a record 1,226 billionaires whose average fortune was $3.7 billion. Some 128 billionaires were new to the Forbes rankings this year, including Colombia's Alejandro Santo Domingo, 35, the richest new billionaire in the world ($9.5 billion) and the face of Santo Domingo Group after last year's death of his father.
In addition to the usual ageing plutocrats and heirs, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, 27, ranked 35th with a net worth of $17.5 billion. The social media heavyweight announced plans last month for an IPO that would value Facebook at a projected $100 billion.
Zuckerberg jumped 17 spots and $4 billion while the combined value of seven Facebook billionaires was $28.7 billion, including the $3.5 billion belonging to Dustin Moskovitz, 27, Zuckerberg's former Harvard room-mate who was listed as the youngest self-made man.
