---
title: "Gates Joins Bezos in 12-Digit Club as the Only Centibillionaires"
description: "Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, once the world’s richest person, has again eclipsed the $100 billion threshold, joining Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos in the exclusive club, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "Newsdeck"
author: "Bloomberg"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/bloomberg/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-03-20-gates-joins-bezos-in-12-digit-club-as-the-only-centibillionaires/"
published: "2019-03-20T00:19:17"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 137
---

# Gates Joins Bezos in 12-Digit Club as the Only Centibillionaires

> Microsoft Corp. co-founder
 Bill Gates, once the world’s richest person, has again eclipsed the $100 billion threshold, joining Amazon.com Inc.’s
 Jeff Bezos in the exclusive club, according to the
 Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

By Bloomberg · Published 20 March 2019, 02:19 SAST

## Content

Gates’s fortune, now $100 billion on the nose, hasn’t reached such heights since the dot-com boom, when Bezos was only beginning his march up the world’s wealth rankings. The Amazon founder is now worth $145.6 billion, having added $20.7 billion this year alone, while Gates has gained $9.5 billion in 2018.

These two fortunes underscore a widening wealth gap in the U.S., where those with the most capital are accumulating riches the fastest. It’s also a worldwide trend. France’s
Bernard Arnault has an $86.2 billion fortune, equal to about 3 percent of his country’s economy. The net worth of Spain’s
Amancio Ortega represents 5 percent of that nation’s gross domestic product. And then there’s
Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose worth about a third of Georgia’s GDP.

Read more: World’s richest just can’t give away their money fast enough **DM**