Bill Gates, Warren Buffet top Forbes list of 400 richest Americans

Bill Gates, Warren Buffet top Forbes list of 400 richest Americans

Bill Gates, Warren Buffet top Forbes list of 400 richest Americans, For the 20th year in a row, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been named the richest person in the United States, according to the Forbes annual list released on Monday.

Gates is worth $72 billion, with Microsoft accounting for only one-fifth of his overall wealth. It turns out most of his money comes from his other investments — notably his firm Cascade, which owns large shares in Deere & Co., the Canadian National Railway and Mexican Coke bottler Femsa.

While the US economy is still battling slow growth, Gates made an additional $9.8 billion in 2013 alone, according to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index.

Warren Buffett, whose net worth is $58.5 billion, ranked number two on the Forbes list.

The 83-year-old CEO of Berkshire Hathaway also made big gains this year, adding another $12.5 billion to his wealth.Other big winners include Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, whose stock holdings made him $9.6 billion in 2013 and helped him rejoin the top 20 list of richest Americans after getting cut last year.