Bill Gates Is Still Forbes' No.1

On this year's Forbes list of the wealthiest people in America, Bill Gates is still number one, even if earlier this year he had lost the position because of the huge amounts of money he gave away to charity through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Still the Microsoft co-founder and chairman managed to rise his wealth this year by around $4 billion, reaching the supreme net worth of $54 billion, $9 billion more than his buddy, Warren Buffett, on second place.

Forbes' 2010 list of the 400 richest Americans is out, and besides Bill Gates who is on top, we have Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at No. 16 with a net worth of $13.1 billion, Microsoft co-founder and Seattle mogul Paul Allen at No. 17 with $12.7 billion and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at No. 18 with $12.6 billion.

Also, the Oracle co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison is at No. 3 with $27 billion, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are tied at No. 11 with $15 billion a piece and Dell founder Michael Dell is No. 15 with $14 billion.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reaches the 35th place with $6.9 billion, but still he is richer than Apple CEO Steve Jobs, only at No. 42 with $6.1 billion, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt at No. 48, with $5.45 billion.

This year's Forbes list came out in a debate environment, over a proposed income tax on people who earn over $200,000 a year, TechFlash reports.

Bill Gates stated to support the tax, which would only be based on income, not on accumulated wealth, standing on his father's side (his father is a strong advocate of the Initiative 1098 since April).

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, a contributor to the campaign opposing the tax, saw his net worth decrease by $200 million, to $13.1 billion, as calculated by the magazine.

As for Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder increased his net worth to $12.7 billion, from $11.5 billion a year ago.

The full Forbes list can be seen here.