It comes as no surprise that Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, still holds the top spot with his fortune amassing $84.5billion, marking the Harvard dropout's 18th time as the world's richest billionaire.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, 53, gave Gates a run for his money, surpassing the computer whiz for one morning, but ultimately came in second with a fortune of $81.7billion.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, 33, is the third richest person, valued at $69.6billion, one of the 50 Americans dominating the list, Forbes revealed on Wednesday.
Both Zuckerberg and Bezos are the first and second biggest gainers this year, respectively, each increasing their extraordinary wealth by $15.5billion. The rest of the top 10 continues with Sergey Brin at $42.7billion, Jack Ma at $37.4billion, Ma Huateng with $36.7billion, Steve Ballmer with $32.9billion and Michael Dell amassing $22.4billion.
Eight out of the top 10 are from the United States with the other two hailing from China.
Bezos and Zuckerberg both had an eventful year.
Bezos, the owner of online retail giant Amazon.com, briefly held the top spot as the world's richest person in late July when his personal wealth surpassed $91billion.
He briefly topped Bill Gates, the 61-year-old co-founder of Microsoft Corp, who has held the top spot since May 2013.
But Bezos quickly slipped to second best when Amazon reported its second quarter earnings showing a profit of $197million on strong sales of $38billion.
The dip in profit is a 77 per cent drop from $857million this time last year, and it's mainly due to Amazon’s aggressive investments in its own business. Bezos' company announced in June a $13.7billion takeover of Whole Foods Market.
The takeover would give the e-commerce giant more than 460 Whole Foods stores and the possibility of making big changes to the supermarket industry.
Zuckerberg's wealth grew by $15.6billion this year, thanks to Facebook stock surging by 34 per cent within the past 12 months.
The Facebook CEO is said to be rumored to be eyeing a role in politics, as his foundation has hired several heavy-weight political advisers to be on the charity's board.
Plus Zuckerberg has recently made moves to propel Facebook into the world of augmented reality with a new patent.
Three members of the company's VR arm Oculus applied for a patent for AR glasses that would allow wearers to see virtual objects - and presumably Facebook posts and notifications - in the real world around them. The glasses will take on the Spectacle from Snap, which has dominated consumer-friendly AR with its famed filters (which Facebook is known to steal).
Other notables on the list are Snapchat founders Evan Spiegel, 27, and Bobby Murphy, 29, the two youngest billionaires on the list, each worth $3.2billion.
The two Stanford fraternity brothers are both tied for 76th place. It is Murphy's first time on the list.
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