10 Richest People on the Globe During the Coronavirus Pandemic



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Ever since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, millions of people have been unemployed or laid off, meanwhile- some millions are facing a cut in their paycheck and wages. To curb the spread of the virus, people had been asked to stay home, others were fired because their employers probably could not afford to pay them anymore.

Non-essential services came to a halt, vendors on the streets are not permitted to sell their products anymore and due to such reasons- people who can afford to, are compelled to make use of the internet to buy goods, products and essentials. All this has taken a toll on people and made many lives difficult to lead. 

Albeit, slowly but steadily, the economy may be getting back on the track. Many people have been working from home, schools and colleges are conducting online classes, all the business meetings have turned to a virtual meeting on Zoom, etc. 

This has all led up to the millionaires and billionaires getting richer and richer, the one's that are not as affected as the rest of the world is- during this pandemic. Some have continued to thrive, for instance, OTT platforms like Netflix, E-Commerce like Amazon, etc.

So, here are some of the richest people on the globe in real-time- on July 24, 2020, Friday at midnight IST -

10. Larry Page 

Net Worth - 67.6 Billion Dollars
Larry Page is popularly known as one of the co-founders of Google, alongside Sergey Brin in 1998. He is an American computer Scientist and Internet Entrepreneur who invented Google's PageRank algorithm that powers the search engine. 

Page was the CEO of Google until 2001 when Eric Schmidt took over his position- followed by which Larry became the CEO of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. He stepped down in December 2019 but remains a board member and a controlling shareholder.


9. Elon Musk


Net Worth - 69.2 Billion Dollars

Elon Reeve Musk who is popularly known as Elon Musk is an engineer, industrial designer, technology entrepreneur and philanthropist who co-founded and led Tesla, SpaceX, NeutraLink and The Boring Company. 


Through electric car maker Tesla, Musk is working on remodelling transportation on Earth. He intends to do the same in space by the rocket producer SpaceX.


8. Steve Ballmer


Net worth - 69.8 Billion Dollars

Steven Anthony Ballmer who is commonly known as Steve Ballmer is an American businessman and investor. Steve is currently the owner of the Los Angelos Clippers of the NBA (National Basketball Association). Ballmer is known for being the former CEO of Microsoft, leading the company since the year 2000 until 2014.


7. Larry Ellison 


Net worth - 72.8 Billion Dollars.

Larry Ellison is an American business magnate, an investor who co-founded the software firm- Oracle in 1977. Oracle established the ever-increasing need for customer relationship management databases. 


Lawrence Joseph Ellison still serves as the chairman of the board and chief technology officer of Oracle but he resigned the role of the CEO in 2014. Ellison is also a philanthropist who pledged 200 Million Dollars to the University of Southern California for a cancer treatment centre in May 2016. 


6. Warren Buffet 


Net Worth - 72.8 Billion Dollars.

Buffet is an American investor, business tycoon, and humanitarian who is the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and is known as the "Oracle of Omaha,". 


Warren Buffett is one of the most prosperous investors of all time and owns over 60 companies. They include Geico, Duracell as well as the restaurant chain Dairy Queen. Warren promised to donate over 99% of his wealth, so far he has given away more than 41 billion dollars.


5. Mukesh Ambani


Net Worth - 77.3 Billion Dollars

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian billionaire business magnate, who runs and chairs $88 billion (revenue) oil and gas giant Reliance Industries Ltd., a Fortune Global 500 company, among India's most valuable companies.


4. Mark Zuckerberg 


Net Worth - 85.6 Billion Dollars

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg who is commonly known as Mark Zuckerberg, is an American media magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist who is popularly known for being the co-founder of Facebook, Inc., the social network. Zuckerberg serves as its chairman, CEO, and controlling shareholder.


Mark started Facebook at Harvard when he was 19 in the year 2004. It was made for students to match names with photos of classmates and took Facebook public in May 2012.


3. Bernard Arnault & Family


Net Worth - 113.0 Billion Dollars

Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault is a French billionaire businessman and art collector who oversees an empire of 70 brands including Louis Vuitton and Sephora. 


LVMH spent 3.2 billion dollars in 2019 for luxury hospitality group, Belmond. It owns or manages 46 hotels, trains and river cruises. His children Frédéric, Delphine, Antoine and Alexandre work in branches of the LVMH empire. Four out of five of Arnault's children work on his empire.


2. Bill Gates


Net Worth - 113.0 Billion Dollars

Bill is an American business tycoon, software developer and investor. He is famously known as the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation. William Henry Gates III popularly known as Bill Gates is also a philanthropist who chairs the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation- with his wife, Melinda, which is the world's largest private charitable foundation. 


The foundation strives to improve global health and to build equal opportunity for people around the earth. Bill Gates has so far donated 35.8 billion dollars worth of Microsoft stock to the Gates Foundation. 


In March 2020, Bill stepped down as a board member of Microsoft, he sold or gave away much of his stake in Microsoft. Gates owns just over 1 per cent of shares and invested in a mix of stocks and other assets.


1. Jeff Bezos 


Net Worth - 177.3 Billion Dollars

Jeffrey Preston Bezos is commonly known as the founder and CEO of the e-commerce colossus Amazon. It scored 280.5 billion dollars in revenues and recorded 11.5 billion dollars in net profit in 2019. 


He is an Internet entrepreneur, media proprietor, and investor and faced criticism from U.S. senators and the general public for its treatment of warehouse workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.


Bezos transferred a quarter of his Amazon stake to his wife, MacKenzie, in 2019 following their divorce. Jeff also owns The Washington Post and Blue Origin. It is an aerospace company which is developing rockets for commercial use.


Endnote:


These are the 10 richest people on the planet right now and they are getting richer amidst this pandemic. Hopefully, they redistribute their wealth so the world does not continue to suffer to make ends meet during a global crisis and also without it when there are several issues it struggles with.


Written by - Ivanova