Tuesday 05 March 2019 4:12 pm | Updated: Monday 03 June 2019 1:15 am

Mark Zuckerberg tumbles down Forbes’ 2019 rich list as Bezos stays top

Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg fell five places on this year’s famed Forbes rich list, having lost $8.7bn (£6.62bn) in a torrid year for his social media website.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos fared considerably better than his compatriot, topping the list for the second year in a row with a jaw-dropping $131bn fortune.

Bezos retained his crown by increasing his wealth by $19bn, thanks to an overall good year for Amazon stock.

Zuckerberg’s losses stem from the hit Facebook’s shares took in 2018 due to poor reports and political scandals, including the revelations that the company shared data with disgraced political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

In the year up to 8 February, the date at which Forbes took a snapshot of people’s wealth using stock prices and exchange rates, Facebook shares dropped five per cent in value.

Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, stayed in second place with a total wealth of $96.5bn.

The “Oracle of Omaha” Warren Buffett came in third, completing an American podium. His personal wealth weighed in at $82.5bn, stemming from his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, which owns over 60 companies.

Francoise Bettencourt was the richest woman on the list, with her and her family’s wealth coming in at $49.3bn thanks to their ownership of L’Oreal stock. She comes in at number 15 on the list.

Forbes’s table shows that the super-rich are getting poorer: for only the second time in a decade, the number of billionaires and their total wealth shrank, dragged down by weak stock markets.

There are now 2,153 billionaires, which is 55 fewer than a year ago, and a record of 994 have less wealth than last year. Overall, the hyper-rich are worth $8.7 trillion, down $400bn from 2018.

China was the country with the biggest drop in billionaires, down 49 from a year ago.

Luisa Kroll, assistant managing editor of wealth, Forbes, said “The billionaire ranks prove that even the world’s richest are not immune to economic forces and the volatility of world markets.”

“Of note this year was the large number of drop-offs in China, and the weakening of the euro vs. the dollar, which pushed down the dollar value of European fortunes,” said Kerry A. Dolan, also an assistant managing editor of wealth at Forbes.