When people think about who is rich in the world, they usually first think about celebrities, especially movie stars and musicians. But the fact is that these types of people, even though they are wealthy without question, are making chump change compared to the real big hitters and the true moguls of the world. As many know, Microsoft genius Bill Gates was the richest person in the world for a string of years, but he was recently passed on the list by a Mexican telecommunications mogul called Carlos Slim Helu. In 2010, Helu pretty much left Gates in the dust, adding another $20.5 billion in one year alone to his already impressive fortune. According to the most recent statistics, Helu is worth $74 billion and there are no signs that he has any intention of slowing down the rate at which he is increasing his income.

Even though he and his family gained their large fortune from the telecom industry in Mexico, he is always looking to expand his business. He has been taking cues from Gates in order to achieve this fortune, because, as many know, Gates made over 70 percent of his fortune from investments outside of Microsoft. However, Helu is now worth $18 billion more than Gates is an is looking to expand his empire – he has been making serious movies in Colombia on the oil exploitation and mining market, which he will continue to do in 2011 as it is a very lucrative market.

We’ll talk about all of the other richest men in the world later, but first let’s look at some interesting trends in the financial world as well, as far as money making is concerned. There are billionaires registered in the world now than there have ever been. According to Forbes, there are officially 1,210 billionaires on the planet. In the last year there were over 200 new billionaires registered, and what is interesting about this statistic is that they are coming from countries that aren’t traditionally know for having the largest number of extremely rich people. In fact, over 100 of these new billionaires are from China, Russia, India and Brazil.

Only a year ago, America was the only country that had more than 100 billionaires, but now both China and Russia do as well. Every other billionaire was American ten years ago, but today, it is every third billionaire, with Russia and China producing the most new billionaires recently.

Let’s take a look at the top ten richest persons in the world by geography and see how they made their money and how they are continuing to make money into the new year. Let’s start with the Americans.

Americans

Bill Gates

Of course, the billionaire who the world is most familiar with, Bill Gates, the co-owner of Microsoft, is still on the top ten list, but as of 2010 he is no longer at the number one spot. However, Gates gets points for his philanthropy and for the fact that he is not really concerned at all about being the richest person on Earth. He has given $30 billion to his foundation, which deals with research for tuberculosis and polio and also works to fight world hunger. Thanks to his huge donations, it is the single most influential charity and foundation in the world. Despite the huge chunk of change he has set aside to help others, Gates is still worth $56 billion.

Warren Buffett

The second wealthiest man in America is Warren Buffett. He and Gates actually worked together on a plan of getting the richest people of the world to sign an agreement that states that they would pledge a majority of their earnings to charity once they die, and the two have been successful in getting over 60 moguls to sign it. He is known at being a genius investor and turned a small textile company called Berkshire Hathaway, which he bought in 1965, into one of the largest holding companies in the world. He is worth $50 billion.

Larry Ellison

Ellison is the owner of the Oracle software company, which made $11.5 billion last year alone. He also loves to buy other companies and has bought over 70 in total, which are worth about $40 billion in total currently. He spends a fortune investing in his personal passion of yachting and actually won the America’s Cup in 2010.

Christy Walton

The only woman on the list of the top ten richest people in the world, she inherited her fortune from her late husband John Walton. His family is of course best know for Wal-mart, the retail chain that was founded by her father-in-law and today has sales of over $405 billion.

Europeans

Bernard Arnault (France)

There are two Europeans listed as one of the top ten richest people in the world. The wealthiest European is Frenchmen Bernard Arnault who is worth about $41 billion. He is in the luxury goods business and his company’s (LVMH) shares rose significantly in value over the last year, tacking on over $13.5 billion to his fortune in this year alone. If you are not sure what luxury goods are, they are things that rich people indulge in and things that regular people cannot afford. Things like buying bottles of Dom Perignon champagne and Cognac Hennessy while dressing head to toe in Gucci with Louis Vuitton accessories rounding out your look. Arnault’s fascination with all things expensive and fancy doesn’t even stop with his company, he has also purchased a yacht-building company and owns a five-star hotel as well.

Amancio Ortega (Spain)

Even though Spaniard Ortega stepped down from his position as the chairman of the Inditex fashion company, he still gets most of his money, almost 90 percent, from his stakes in the company. His company owns some of the biggest fashion chain stores in Europe, totaling 5,000 stores in almost 80 countries across the globe. He is also big on property and owns expensive homes all over the world. Even though he is worth over $31 billion, he is always looking to expand his enterprise and is greatly interested in the banking business and tourism all around the world.

Indians

Lakshmi Mittal

India boasts just as many billionaires that are in the top ten as Europe does, while Mittal is easily the richest man in all of India, if not Asia. He owns the world’s largest steel company ArcelorMittal, which has a great year in 2010 and increased its worth almost 20 times over. He also has serious stakes in the world stainless steel and iron mining industries. He plans on building a $40 million mansion for himself in London this year and is the sixth richest man in the world currently worth $31.3 billion.

Mukesh Ambani

Ambani is no slouch either, ranked as the ninth richest person in the world with a net worth of $27 billion. He owns Reliance Industries which is the largest company in India and is a huge oil and gas company worldwide. He has made an alliance with another oil and gas giant, BP, which local financial experts are calling the best foreign investment that has ever been made in India.

Latin Americans

Carlos Slim Helu

He have already talked about Helu, who is the wealthiest person in the world for the second consecutive year, ending Bill Gates’ reign in 2010. He gets most of his money from the telecom industry, in fact, 62 percent of his money comes from America Movil. It is easy to see that he really wants to retain the title of richest man, because while Gates and Buffett added only about $3 billion to their fortunes in 2010, he added an astonishing $20.5 billion and is now worth a total of $74 billion. He merged his fixed-line company with America Movil, which is the biggest wireless company in all of Latin America. Everyone has taken notice of what Helu has been doing, even Gates, who recently started investing in the Mexican stock market.

Eike Batista

This Brazilian ranks eighth on the list and is worth about $30 billion, but he is easily the most ambitious of the bunch. In fact, Batista claims that he will one day take Helu’s throne and become the wealthiest man in the world, though, realistically, he has a long way to go before that happens. However, he is determined and the richest man in Brazil wants to go worldwide in 2011. He is trying to get foreign investors interested in his holding company, EBX, and has announced that he will be opening an office in New York and will also be listing some of his company’s shares on the London Stock Exchange as well. He owns an oil and gas exploitation company called OGX, which makes up two-thirds of his fortune.

The Giving Pledge

This is something that we touched on earlier, but definitely needs more attention, because it is a truly monumental idea and call to action. The second and third richest men in the world, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, started an initiative in which they urged all of the wealthiest people of the world to promise that they will give at least half of their fortunes to foundations and charities. They have managed to get forty of the richest families and people of the world to promise a whopping total of $125 billion to charity, according to the stats that were taken from the net worths of the people who promised to take part in this historical philanthropic action. In recent years, American billionaires have been doing a good job of donating to worth causes, and almost every year in recent memory, these wealthy individuals from America have given about $300 billion to such causes. However, the money going to charities has dwindled considerably since the recession hit.

The pledge that these 57 (so far) billionaires have taken states that either during their lifetimes or after their passing, they will give a majority, at least 50 percent, of their fortunes to charity. The people who are willing to donate will be able to choose what charities and foundations their money will be going to, so there will be no one large foundation that will be dictating where all of this money will go – the donators will be able to make those decision independently. By publicly signing their names on the Giving Pledge website, the expected donators are not legally bound, but set for themselves a moral obligation to give their money to charitable causes. Gates and Buffett had a big part in the action and even lobbied personally with many of the billionaires that they knew and were in contact with.

Even though the campaign has focused on American billionaires, the two have plans to turn it into a global action. Buffett announced that he would be meeting with rich people from India and China in order to talk about the idea and see if they would be interested in joining the philanthropic campaign and making it a worldwide concept. Buffett and Gates have scheduled a meeting with Indian billionaires and millionaires in March to discuss the idea and see if anyone from that country would be interested in the campaign.

As expected, people around he world are praising the two billionaires for their initiative and it is showing many that there are people with a lot of money who are socially responsible and are interested in making a change in the world, which is helping to minimize the usual perception people have of the wealthy, who are only interested in material gains for themselves and never seem to be satisfied with how much money they have.