Here is the list of the top 20 richest people in the world, their backgrounds, and details

From Mukesh Ambani to Elon Musk, the world is filled with billionaires who have made a name for themselves by creating revolutionary products that have changed people's lives. These individuals have made their way to a long list of the richest people and they continue to expand their net worth for the world to witness.

So, in this article, we have curated an in-depth list of the richest people in the world with all their details, including their age, net worth, and what they are known for. Check it out right below.

Being an African-American looking to make a name for himself in this world, Elon Musk started with the popular payment platform PayPal and then ventured into the space technology industry with SpaceX. However, his breakthrough happened with the massive success of his EV (electric vehicle) company Tesla that currently dominates the electric automobile sector in the world. This helped Musk surpass Amazon head, Jeff Bezos and capture the numero uno position in the list of the richest people in the world.

Being the richest person in the world, Musk comes from a humble background. He faced a lot of struggles during his early life and acquired a Bachelor of Arts degree in Physics and a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the Wharton School. He then dropped out of a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) program at Stanford University and ventured into the Internet boom to launch a startup. Following that, Musk had more successes than failures that have made him what he is today. Going forward, he aims to aid space technology and venture into other planets for colonization!

Bernard Arnault is the CEO and the head of the LVMH group that oversees over 70 fashion and cosmetic brands, including the luxury fashion brand Louis Vuitton and multinational cosmetic store brands like Sephora. The popular American jewelry brand Tiffany & Co. also comes under Arnault's LVMH empire and his company also owns and manages multiple hotels, trains, and river cruises. These businesses generate enough wealth to make Arnault the richest person in France and the second richest one in the world.

Arnault graduated from the École Polytechnique, France's leading engineering school, in 1971. Following his graduation, he began his career at his father's civil engineering company named Ferret-Savinel. He remained in the position of president of the company from 1978-84 and took significant business decisions. Finally, in 1987, Arnault worked with Alain Chevalier, CEO of Moët Hennessy, and Henry Racamier, president of Louis Vuitton, to form a group of luxury brands known as LVMH. And as they say, the rest is history!

After starting Amazon in his garage back in 1994, Jeff Bezos shot to fame and money after the platform became the world's most popular e-commerce medium. Although he stepped down from the CEO position last year, Bezos still owns almost 10% of his company. He also owns The Washinton Post and a space-tech company known as Blue Origin. For a brief period, Bezos was the #1 richest person in the world. However, he was swept away by Tesla chief Elon Musk in 2021.

Born to Jacklyn and Theodore Jørgensen, Jeff became a "Bezos" after his mother divorced his biological father and married Cuban immigrant Miguel Bezos. He then graduated from Princeton University with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science and ideated Amazon during a road trip from New York to Seattle. Now, it has become the largest online sales company in the world and made him the "richest man in modern history."

Coming from a humble family in India, Gautam Adani went on to make a name for himself in the world with his grasp of the infrastructure sector of the country. Adani's primary businesses include the ownership and management of Mundra Port in Gujarat, which is the country's largest port. The Adani Group also owns a 74% stake in Mumbai International Airport, which is the second-busiest airport in India.

Born on 24 June 1962 in a Gujarati Jain family, Adani dropped out of college in his second year and moved to Mumbai. He initially sorted diamonds before moving into PVC imports. Adani then established Adani Exports in 1985 and got the contract of the Mundra Port in Gujarat from the government in 1995. This is when Adani's fate turned, as the Mundra port is the largest private sector port in India with a total capacity of handling 210 million tons of cargo every year. 

Bill Gates is that individual who changed the lives of people when he created Microsoft and made computers a household product. From being a tech-whiz kid in the USA who created his first computer program at the early age of 13 to becoming one of the richest people in the world, Gates has had an exciting journey. Apart from being one of the richest people, Gates is also a philanthropist who has donated almost $57 billion to the Gates Foundation.

Gates was born in 1955 to his father William H. Gates and his mother Mary Maxwell Gates. Gates' parents wanted him to pursue a career in law. However, he always had an interest in computers and was amazed at how these machines always execute software code perfectly. Then after a lot of hustle and bustle, Gates and his friend Paul Allen founded Microsoft (a combination of "microcomputer" and "software"). Now, Microsoft is one of the biggest companies in the world and more than half of the world's population uses its products and services, especially Windows.

Larry Ellison is the former CEO and the co-founder of one of the largest database companies in the world, Oracle. He created the company back on 1977 and was in the CEO position for 37 years before giving up the role in 2014. Ellison is now the sixth richest person in the world with a 35% stake in Oracle and a position on Tesla's board since 2018.

Ellison was always fond of science and data management. After being inspired by a paper written by Edgar F. Codd on relational database systems called "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks", he founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL), which later on became Oracle. 

Warren Buffet is a son of a US congressman and is known as the "Oracle of Omaha" for his investing skills. Apart from heading his holding company named Berkshire Hathaway which owns other companies like Duracell and Dairy Queen, Buffet owns large stocks and Apple and several banks. The man has always hailed the benefits of compound interest that helped him garner his wealth, in turn, making him one of the richest people in the world.

Now, although being one of the richest men in the world, Buffet is known for his economic thinking. Although he has been the chairman and the largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway since 1970 and garnered a lot of wealth in his lifetime, Buffet has pledged to donate a whopping 99% of his total wealth to philanthropic causes. In fact, he partnered with Bill Gates and founded The Giving Pledge in 2010 under which billionaires pledge to give away at least half of their earnings to solve worldwide crises.

One of the co-founders of the most popular company in the world, Larry Page was the CEO of Google for multiple terms. He was the first CEO since Google's inception in 1998 and remained in the position until 2001. In 2011, Page returned to the CEO position and led the company till 2015. Other than being a founding investor in space exploration company Planetary Resources, Page is now also funding startups like Kitty Hawk and Opener, which are focused on developing flying cars.

Page comes from a science background family as his father, Carl Victor Page Sr. earned a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Michigan. Hence, Page was interested in technology and business, and he wanted to build a company from the age of 12. That happened when Page met Brin and incorporated Google in 1998. Page also created the first algorithm, named PageRank, which was used by Google to rank websites in search results.

Another co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin was the partner of Page. Hence, it's no surprise that he is also on the list of the richest people in the world. Brin is the former president of Alphabet, Google's parent company that owns other entities like YouTube, Fitbit, Android, and more. After stepping down from the president position in 2019, he has been a controller shareholder and a board member of the company.

The former head of one of the biggest groups of companies in India, Mukesh Ambani has been on the list of the richest people in the world for a long time. Building on the legacy of his late father Dhirubhai Ambani, Mukesh chaired Reliance Industries and acquired success in the petrochemicals, energy, and telecommunications sectors. He recently stepped down from the chairman position and his son, Akash Ambani succeeded to take the role. So, we can expect the younger Ambani to make it to the list of the world's richest people soon.

Steve Ballmer was the CEO of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014 and oversaw the company when Google and Apple were competing against each other. He joined as the 30th employee in Microsoft in 1980 after dropping out of Stanford's MBA program. And after retiring from his position at Microsoft, he bought NBA's Los Angeles Clippers team for $2 billion.

Carlos Slim is the richest man in Mexico and is known to control and manage Latin America's biggest mobile telecom firm, América Móvil.  Slim bought a stake in Telmex, which is Mexico's only phone company, back in 1990 and it is now a part of his company. Slim holds a major 79% stake in Grupo Carso which is one of South America's largest conglomerates, accounting for over 8% of his fortune.

Michael Rubens Bloomberg is a businessman based in the United States of America. He started out by becoming a general partner at Salomon Brothers in 1973. He headed equity trading in this investment bank. Phibro Corporation bought Salomon Brothers in 1981, and the new management fired Bloomberg, paying him $10 million dollars which he used to set up a data services company named innovative marketing system. The company sold customized computer terminals. In 1986, the company renamed itself Bloomberg L.P. In march 2009, Forbes reported Bloomberg's wealth at $16 billion.  Currently, Bloomberg's is estimated at $76.8 billion. 

While Bettencourt Meyers is a name that only people interested in the field of business may have heard but their brainchild is a household name. L'Oreal was founded by Eugene Schuller and Francoise Bettencourt is his granddaughter. Her family owns around 33% of L'Oreal's stock. She has served on the board since 1997 and is the richest woman on this planet right now. Bettencourt Meyers also serves as the president of her family's philanthropic foundation, which believes in uplifting France's science and arts. 

Zhong Shanshan dropped out of school during China's stirring Cultural Revolution. He worked as a construction worker, and a newspaper reporter before starting his own beverage company. In 1996, Zhong founded a bottled water company in Hangzhou, which later became Nongfu Spring. In 1999, Nongfu spring stopped removing natural minerals from its water which was an informed marketing strategy and helped increase exposure to its audience. At the end of 2020, Zhong became Asia's richest man however, not long after Mukesh Ambani of India took his place. As of January 2021, he owned 84.4% of Nongfu Spring.

The founder and CEO of the most popular social platform in the world, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg was once the youngest self-made billionaire on Earth. Zuckerberg attended Harvard University where he ideated Facebook and launched the platform in the world along with his friends and roommates. Today, he is the CEO and the head of Meta, which is the umbrella company of multiple social companies like WhatsApp and Instagram.

The youngest son of the American businessman Sam Walton, who founded the uber-popular store Walmart, Jim Walton is carrying on the legacy of his father. He is the chairman of Arvest Bank, which is the family bank and has assets worth over $20 billion. Apart from managing the Walmart empire, Jim Walton is also a philanthropist and has donated around $1.2 billion in stock to the family foundation.

Sister to Jim and Rob Walton, Alice Walton is the only daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton and is the chairman of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. She has always been drawn to curating art and hence, Alice opened the Crystal Bridges Museum in her hometown which showcases the works of Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, and Norman Rockwell. Although she did not take a full-time job in her father's business, Alice worked at Walmart as a buyer of children's clothes in 1971.

The eldest of the Walton siblings, Rob Walton is the eldest son of Sam Walmart founder Sam Walton and is the current director of the company. He took over the company after his father's death back in 1992 and retired as a chairman in 2015. He, along with brother Rob and sister Alice Walton, own about half of Walmart. Hence, it is no surprise that all three of the Walton siblings are there on the richest people list.

Amancio Ortega is one of the largest business magnates in the world and the richest clothing retailer in Spain. He started his career in the textile industry in 1963 and is known for starting the uber-popular Zara fashion chain with his ex-wife Rosalia Mera in 1975. He is the owner of about 60% of Madrid's Inditex, which includes 8 brands and around 7,500 stores around the world. His main income comes from dividends and he has also invested a lot in real estate in Madrid, London, Barcelona, Chicago, New York, and Miami.

So, there you go! This is the list of the world's richest people in 2022. Now, do keep in mind that the list is accurate as of July 28, 2022. The net worths and the positions of the individuals included in the list might vary from day to day. However, I hope that this list gave you a general idea about the richest individuals in the world. If it did, let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Also read: Top 20 richest rappers in the world: Their net worth & early life