Bill Gates did not make more money to be placed as the world’s richest man once again. He simply did not lose as much. Thanks to the global meltdown which wiped out $2 trillion from the world’s billionaires. The number of billionaires in the world today fell down drastically by nearly 33% to 793 during the last one year.

Last year Bill Gates was worth $58 billion. Today he is worth $40 billion and regained his title as the richest man in the world. Last year he was third in the rich list. Warren Buffett was last year’s richest man. He was worth $62 billion dollars last year but now is worth only $37 billion. Carlos Slim fell down to the third place with $35 billion from a whopping $60 billion dollars last year.

The current economic recession has hit billionaires heavily with a typical billionaires losing upto one third of net worth. Entrepreneurs generate lots of jobs when their net worth is at an increase. But now it is highly doubtful if the top entrepreneurs will be expanding their companies.

Just goes to show the fickleness of fortune. A couple of years ago nobody would have guessed the enormous impact of recession on the top players. The current recession has taken everybody by surprise and even the “experts” are not in a position to predict how long this recession would last or how quickly it would recover. Some say that this time around the recession will not recover in a typical U shape curve witnessed the last time the economy was in recession.

Lets hope that the current recession will not turn into depression.