Spanish retail tycoon Amancio Ortega briefly surpassed Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates by mere millions of dollars to become the world’s richest person on Tuesday afternoon. The two were separated by only a few million dollars and were switching back and forth as the world's richest person on Tuesday afternoon. At 2 p.m., he had a net worth of $84.722 billion vs. $84.72 billion for Ortega. Gates has held the spot as the world’s richest person for 18 of the past 23 years on Forbes’ annual Billionaires List, published each spring. In July, Bezos was the world’s richest person for a single morning as his net worth surged above $90 billion.

Source: Forbes August 29, 2017 18:14 UTC