Who was the world's richest man before Bill Gates?

In 1985, Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, topped the Forbes List. He beat out Gordon Getty, the son of J. Paul Getty, the oil tycoon; and the holder of the top spot in '83 and '84. read more

Gates became the world’s richest man in 1992. Footnotes [1] The Forbes 400 : Walton Tops List of Richest Americans [2] Software Guru Bill Gates Tops 'Richest' List : Wealth: Microsoft's founder is worth $6.3 billion, Forbes says. read more

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has overtaken Bill Gates and is now the richest person in the world, with a fortune topping $90 billion for the first time ever. When markets opened on Thursday, Bezos had a net worth of $90.6 billion, putting him $500 million ahead of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. read more

I think you have Gates mixed up with American as opposed to the whole world. The riches man in the world was and still is a Sheik. I think he's in Dubai. read more