Bill Gates regains his spot as world's richest man

Bill Gates has recaptured his spot as the world's richest person with a net worth of $76 billion.

The Microsoft co-founder has dominated the list created by Forbes, topping it in 15 out of the last 20 years.

Mexican business magnate, Carlos Slim Helu had held the position for the last four years but his personal fortune went down by $1bn in the last 12 months and now stands at $72 billion.

Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison is the next highest tech chief on the list in fifth place. The eccentric chief, who famously ditched his keynote speech at last year's Oracle Openworld event to watch his team race in the America's Cup boat race, has a fortune of $48 billion.

Other high-profile tech CEOs were grouped together further down the list.

Google CEO Larry Page was in 17th position ($32.3 billion). He was followed by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos ($32 billion) and then Google co-founder Sergey Brin ($31.8bn).

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's co-founder and CEO, made the biggest gain on the list. He saw his personal wealth more than double from $13.3 billion to over $28.5 billion. But it still wasn't enough to let him break into the top 20 - as he placed 21st on the list.

Christy Walton, who married into the family that founded Walmart, was the highest female on the list with a net worth of $36.7 billion.

Forbes said 268 billionaires were new to the list, beating the previous high of 226 in 2008.

The US is home to the biggest number of billionaires (492), followed by China (152) and Russia (111).