Famous Billionaires

Could not for the life of me remember Berlusconi. Tried a variety of spellings and variations to no avail. Only one I missed.

How did some Spanish get to be the richest?

Carlos Slim is Mexican. Actually Arab-Mexican... his last name should really be Salim. Lebanese ancestry like Salma Hayek. And he has almost monopolized the entire Mexican telecom market in addition to having investments all over Latin America.
However, as of 2014 the title of richest has gone back to Bill Gates once again. Carlos is #2.

its because Mexico is an oligarchy and he is the lead sucker at the top. And yes he runs their telecom markets, and owns many other businesses..

Bill Gates has reclaimed the top spot of World's Richest Man as of Forbes list this year.

in spite of actively trying to give away all his money. It's really tough to not be rich in America, once you are.

What was he like?

Rich

Nailed it.Please check out my quizzes

Thank you! I was thinking the same thing.

Their businesses go bankrupt. I don't think any of these people has personally declared bankruptcy, which is very different.

Trump-owned businesses have declared bankruptcy six times. Many other Trump businesses have failed without filing for bankruptcy protection. Many other Trump businesses and charities have been forced to close by judicial order, or pay large fines, for being fraudulent and poorly run. The man himself has never declared personal bankruptcy, though according to those close to him he has at times been billions of dollars in debt, owing substantially more than he had in assets. He gets around this mostly by routinely not paying his debts, taking advantage of people, lying, cheating, and doing whatever he can to avoid any sort of responsibility or accountability for his myriad crimes, grifts, cons, and failures. The same behavior that is on public display now 24/7 since becoming president.

Spelling: Buffett. I'm amazed after so many thousands have taken this quiz that no-one's noticed yet!

Bill gates is no longer on top!

Because you can always give Jeff Bezos more attention...

Elon Musk probably deserves to be on this list by now.

Jeff Bezos has a net worth of 113B$.

Telephone and Data Systems? Tonga Defensive Services? Tornado Debris Signature? The Daily Show? The Downward Spiral?

It's a quiz, not encyclopedic entry

I think the idea is to make the clue solvable with general knowledge without being completely obvious to absolutely anyone taking the quiz.

Trump isn't actually a billionaire, so be grateful that he was included at all.

I was going to add this myself. He once brought a libel suit against an author who released a book claiming Trump was not actually a billionaire. The court said Trump had to offer proof that the author was lying (i.e., prove you're really a billionaire)...and Trump withdrew the suit. He is a "billionaire" because he keeps telling everyone he is one, but every time someone asks him for proof, he balks. He's full of it. Three years and still no tax returns. He's obviously very rich, but his wealth is probably under $500 million.

He values his own name at between 3 to 8 billion dollars, depending on his mood, according to court filings. This is where most of his own reported net worth comes from. When he was elected president in 2016 it's very likely that he was worth only a few million dollars, or substantially in debt and effectively worth less than zero, but since becoming president he was worked tirelessly to enrich himself and his family at the expense of the country and the world. This is literally been his #1 priority. He may actually be a billionaire by the time he goes back to Mar-a-Lago and/or prison.

.... what??? Certainly? I know he keeps repeating this over and over and over again to try and appear that he's being magnanimous. But, while, yes, his "brand" has suffered tremendously, due to the fact that his idiocy and ineptitude are on public display all the time now, and his divisive and hateful politics have made people want to disassociate themselves from him, on the other hand he helped push through a massive tax cut for the wealthy that has already helped American billionaires avoid paying billions in taxes, he secured multiple patents for his daughter to do business in China which could end up being worth ungodly amounts of money, he has charged taxpayers an estimated $123 million for his golfing habit and 100% of those trips have been made to Trump-owned properties, he has funneled millions upon millions of dollars to Mar-a-Lago for expenses related to hosting himself and the executive office there, he also doubled fees for membership after the election

He's got foreign heads of state and all sorts of other people lining up to stay at his properties in Miami, Washington, New York and around the world so that they can brown nose and gain access. The RNC among others have been found renting out rooms at Trump properties which were unoccupied. Trump's Tunberry resort in Scotland has made over $200k from military visits since the president started requiring military planes to stop there, often overnight, and refuel at much greater cost than they could at military bases. He tried to get away with hosting the G8 at Doral. Who knows how much money he's made with sweetheart deals on the properties he owns in Moscow and Istanbul by sacrificing American interests at the request of Putin and Erdogan- by Trump's own admission he has a massive conflict of interest in any dealings involving these and other locations due to his financial interests there. His sons have been profiting hand over fist off of this too, and his lawyer.

I am sure that narcissism is the main reason why Trump didn't decline taking the presidency and why he doesn't want to be impeached and also why he wants to get reelected... and it probably factored heavily in to his decision to run in the first place... but it's also undeniable that he has been using the presidency as a means of personal enrichment and this is really the only reason he can comprehend for doing anything. If it benefits him somehow. Something could be beneficial to him because of his pride, that's true, but Trump's ego is tied entirely to how much money he has so these things are pretty much one and the same. Though it is almost guaranteed that Trump is a tax fraud and his taxes will reveal this and numerous other shady things, I'm also pretty confident the main reason he has fought tooth and nail to hide them is to avoid showing how little his assets are worth vs what he claims. Narcissism. At the same time he has said in the past that he ran to self promote his brand.

and just think about how much the next book that he ghost writes will be worth.
and I think like many narcissists he doesn't really grasp the possibility of his own mortality so the fact that he is old and might die soon is not going to stop him from wanting to make more money. This is not a rational person we are talking about.

@kalbahamut In Trump's defense (I can't believe I just typed that) does anyone want to be impeached? I agree with the rest, but I think it is natural to not want to be impeached.

I doubt it. I was just conceding that his ego may be the primary reason he does anything even if it's not the only reason. And I imagine that other presidents might wish to avoid impeachment for other reasons... for instance because they had a vision for the country they wanted to implement. In Trump's case, there's nothing else there.

Imagine unironically claiming using "Trump Derangement Syndrome" as an insut

I don’t care what anyone says. Trump Derangement Syndrome is not a real thing. Some people just can’t handle criticism.

Someone just get really angry at the fact that a morally bankrupt, narcissistic monster who embodies the antithesis of all our alleged values -- both constitutional and moral -- is the object of so much admiration and holds the most powerful office in the world. I don't think it makes them deranged. I think it's pretty much the marker of sanity.

"Hopeful" "Trump" and "will be (removed, impeached, imprisoned, etc) are phrases I've heard

Can I suggest removing the "Dallas Mavericks owner and "shark tank" host" clue, as for a Brit, and possibly a non North American, that clue reads as 'Owns sports team you have never heard of and presents a TV show that isn't shown in your country." I appreciate there is a limited pool of globally famous billionaires but that one is all but impossible for those of us from over the pond. How about replacing it with someone like David Geffen, or James Dyson?

Who the heck is James Dyson? Mark Cuban is more internationally famous.

I've heard of Dyson vacuums but that doesn't mean I know who James Dyson is. Is James Dyson on a famous reality TV show and appear regularly on other talk shows? If I said, hey, haven't you ever heard of Junichi Honda before? Would you say that you had, simply because you know what a Honda Civic is? If so.. then you'd look silly because I just made that guy up. The founder of Honda was apparently a guy named Soichiro.

I don't like or watch sports at all. But I've seen Mark Cuban on TV. but honestly I don't really care I'm just giving Algernon grief because he posts the same whiny comment on every single quiz it seems. All based on his very limited and myopic point of view, i.e. if he doesn't know something, it must not be internationally famous, and if he does know something, well then it must be. This is obviously wrong.

Let's see some evidence that Trump has $3.1 billion. I assume you have his tax returns.

That’s the estimated number based on the information we currently have. Though it’s fairly likely he has much less.

You could include Michael Jordan, the only athlete to reach billionaire status. Tiger Woods might have gotten there if not for the...unpleasantness that sidelined him around 2010.

That's a nice way to put it.

These people need to get taxed the hell out of. No one needs this amount of money for personal use. Some are good at donating to charity, thanks! But most are pieces of shit who has no empathy what so ever.

Evil bastards the lot of them

Some of them, definitely. Others, it's hard to say. My gut says it's very difficult to become a billionaire without stepping on a lot of people, but that's just a generalization. Those in the arts (Oprah, Spielberg, Lucas) made their money mostly by entertaining people. Good for them. I think Mark Cuban and Mike Bloomberg made their money by cornering information markets without really crushing any little guys along the way. My opinion on Elon Musk changes by the day. JK Rowling is probably the most benign billionaire in the world (if she is in fact a billionaire, which many sources estimate, but that Rowling herself denies).

If Rowling is a billionaire, she is like Oprah, Spielberg, and Lucas. She also wrote a series of books that I've read a couple dozen times so I would like to thank her for that.

What about Mukesh Ambani from India? He's richer than Michael Bloomburg.

The fact that Sam Walton was not on there is a disgrace to the Southern community.

There's been some news stating that now Bernard Arnault is the richest man on Earth, surpassing Jeff Bezos.

This list is all the more reason why billionaires shouldn't be allowed to keep their money.

Hey JetPunk - I love your quizzes but not the sly political commentary. Please keep your opinions to yourself. Trivia should be non-partisan enjoyment. If I want to raise my blood pressure, I will do so by watching the news. Thanks.

If any of the above clues raised your blood pressure you should probably seek medical attention.

"Tea party puppet masters" was more accurate than "promoter of libertarian causes." The Koch's only political ideology is greed.