HispanicBusiness

Microsoft founder Bill Gates and super-investor Warren Buffet are the richest people in the United States for the 12 straight year, according to the annual Forbes rich list published Wednesday.

The finance magazine estimated Gates' fortune at 66 billion dollars, while Buffet was estimated to be worth 46 billion dollars.

The third richest man in the United States was Oracle founder Larry Ellison with a fortune of 41 billion dollars, while brothers David and Charles Koch took the next two places with assets worth 31 billion dollars each.

Wal-Mart heiress Christy Walton was the richest US woman with a fortune of 27.9 billion dollars, just ahead of three other Walton family members. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg was in tenth place with a 25 billion dollar fortune.

Overall the US super-rich saw their values soar over the last year by more than 10 per cent with the combined wealth of America's 400 richest people rising from 1.5 trillion dollars to 1.7 trillion dollars.

The minimum amount of wealth needed to make the list was 1.1 billion dollars, Forbes said, with the average net worth of people on the list reaching 4.2 billion dollars, up from 3.8 billion dollars last year.

The richest newcomer was Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who had a net worth of 11 billion dollars.

But tech entrepreneurs did not all fare so well. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg saw his fortune fall by 8.1 billion dollars to 9.4 billion dollars, which dropped him from 14th place last year to the 36th spot.