Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

It seems the current economy can now be blamed for both the rich as well as the poor losing money.  In recent news Bill Gates has lost $7 billion in this last year.  Of course, while that may sound bad, truth be told he is still very rich.  According to the recently published Forbes list of “400 Riches Americans 2009” list, Bill Gates is still worth a whopping $50 billion.

Ultimately that means his net worth has dropped from $57 billion down to $50 billion.  Overall, that is an incredible sum of money, and it is certainly more than I even dream about making in my lifetime, much less losing in the course of one year.

But what I wonder is whether he would even notice this drop in net worth. Maybe this is like his version of misplacing a $50. 

Finally, a few of the other individuals that topped the richest Americans list are Michael Dell and Jeff Bezos.  And while, Michael Dell was also down, he only lost $600 million.  Of course, both Michael Dell and Bill Gates look bad as compared to Jeff Bezos who managed to go up by $100 million dollars.  But sadly (can I really use sadly when speaking about millions and billions?) Bezos is still only worth a little over what Bill Gates lost last year.  So I guess even with a $7 billion loss, Bill Gates is still clearly the winner.

Finally, two other notable names include Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs, who are still very wealthy but managed to lose $400 and $600 million respectively.

Read [Forbes] and [Fortune]