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Bill Gates is BACK... as CHIEF RICH human of PLANET EARTH

Software king bumps Carlos Slim into second place

Microsoft supremo Bill Gates is once again the richest person on the planet, after being relegated to second place for the last four years.

Forbes said that Gates had forced Carlos Slim into the runner up position by amassing $4bn more in personal wealth in 2013 courtesy of MS shares performing well on Wall Street.

The 58-year-old founder of Microsoft, who quit his chairmanship of the company in February and agreed to spend more time at Redmond overseeing the software's giant's freshly-installed management interface - led by nobody-puts-baby-in-the-corner Steve Ballmer's replacement Satya Nadella, is now worth $76bn, according to Forbes' latest rich list.

Mexican telecoms multibillionaire Slim, on the other hand, has $72bn tucked away in his treasure trove.

Forbes' noted that Gates has been "the richest man in the world for 15 out of the last 20 years" now.

Elsewhere on the list, Oracle founder Larry Ellison came in at fifth place with a personal wealth of $48bn. In 2013, he notably blew huge piles of moola on a fancy pants yacht that sealed an impressive, last gasp victory in the America's Cup.

Over at Google, croaky Larry Page - with $32.3bn in the bank - has more cash to splash then his Glassy co-pilot Sergey Brin, whose fortune is worth $31.8bn.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is neatly sandwiched between the Chocolate Factory men, with riches worth $32bn.

Copper-haired, data-mining boydroid Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, is closing in on his rivals in the starry-eyed tech-meets-ads world. His personal wealth now stands at $28.5bn, or nearly a billion dollars for every year Zuck has been on this planet since his Orwellian arrival in 1984.

You can pore over the full Forbes' 2014 rich list, while shaking your head and muttering under your breath, over here. ®

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