How empty is the Treasury coffers? For comparison, $38.8 billion is equivalent to the gross domestic product of Bahrain and Paraguay, less than the net worth of more than two dozen of the world’s richest people. Of course, much of these billionaires’ wealth is tied up in stocks, not cash.
Here’s a list of people with net worth greater than US cash reserves, according to Thursday’s Bloomberg News Billionaires Index. (Per the news agency’s editorial guidelines, its billionaire Michael Bloomberg is not included in the index. However, Forbes estimates his net worth at $94.5 billion.)
Bernard Arnault, CEO of the luxury group LVMH: 189 billion US dollars
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter: $179 billion
Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO: $139 billion
Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft: $125 billion
Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO of Oracle: $116 billion
Steve Ballmer, investor and former Microsoft CEO: $113 billion
Larry Page, co-founder of Google: $112 billion
Warren Buffett, Investor: $111 billion
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google: $106 billion
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook co-founder and CEO: $92.3 billion
Carlos Slim, Investor: $90.3 billion
Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, heiress to the L’Oréal fortune and company board member: $87.2 billion
Mukesh Ambani, chairman of energy company Reliance Industries: $83.7 billion
Amancio Ortega, founder of fashion group Inditex: $67.1 billion
Jim Walton, heir to Walmart fortune: $66.6 billion
Rob Walton, heir to Walmart fortune: $64.9 billion
Alice Walton, heiress to the Walmart fortune: $63.8 billion
Gautam Adani, founder and chairman of conglomerate Adani Group: $63.4 billion
Jacqueline Mars, heiress and co-owner of candy maker Mars: $61.7 billion
John Mars, heir and chairman of Mars: $61.7 billion
Zhong Shanshan, founder and chairman of bottled water company Nongfu Spring: $61.6 billion
Julia Flesher Koch and family, heirs of businessman David Koch: $60.6 billion
Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries: $60.4 billion
Michael Dell, CEO and Chairman of Dell Technologies: $53.4 billion
Alain Wertheimer, co-owner and chairman of Chanel: $45.9 billion
Gérard Wertheimer, co-owner of Chanel: $45.9 billion
Giovanni Ferrero, CEO of chocolate and confectionery company Ferrero Group, and family: $43.6 billion
Zhang Yiming, founder and CEO of technology company ByteDance: $42.3 billion
Nike co-founder Phil Knight and family: $41.5 billion
Klaus-Michael Kühne, honorary chairman and majority owner of the transport company Kühne+Nagel: 40.9 billion US dollars
François Pinault, founder of the luxury group Kering: $39.6 billion
