Centibillionaire

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In 1999, Bill Gates became the first “centibillionaire” in history

A centibillionaire is a media term for a person who has gained or exceeded the net worth of at least one hundred billion units of currency, such as United States dollars (USD), U.K pounds or euros.

The use of the prefix “centi” technically refers to one hundredth, or 1/100 to the standard SI prefix, not a hundred. The correct term would be hectobillionaire, however, due to popular usage, centibillionaire is the general term used by newspapers and financial articles. ^[1]

There has only been one person to have reached the $100 billion barrier, which is Bill Gates. On April 8, 1999, Bill Gates net worth officially exceeded the $100 billion after a large gain in the stock market for Microsoft. ^[2] His net worth levelled to the peak of $101 billion before falling due to the Dot-com bubble. He was predicted to become a trillionaire by 2004, yet his falling wealth contradicted the claims. As of 2008, the closest person to becoming the second centibillionaire in history is Carlos Slim Helú, with an estimated $72.4 billion, and an annual increase of $14 billion.

However, if the number of the richest people in history adjusted for inflation were counted, then Bill Gates whould be the twentieth person to have reached the sum of $100 Billion, after John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford and others, according to the 2008 list of most wealthy historical figures.