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Who is the richest man in the world?

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos surpassed Bill Gates in July 2017 to become not only the world’s richest man, but the richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $112 billion, according to Forbes’s 2018 Billionaires List.

Source: http://time.com/money/4746795/richest-people-in-the-world/

It seems there is a difference here between the world’s richest man and the richest person in the world. What is the difference? I have no clue. thanks

Edit: I thought that “man” indicates or equivalent to any human being.

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    Hint: a man is a person of the male sex.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Oct 13, 2018 at 14:57
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    The richest person in the world might be a woman
    – Ronald Sole
    Commented Oct 13, 2018 at 14:57
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    Or in the US, a corporation.
    – TimR
    Commented Oct 13, 2018 at 17:08
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    ...and specifically, OP's article has one section for world's richest man, and another for richest woman. The "richest person" comment indicates that Bezos is not only richer than all the men on the list, but also richer than all of the women from the other list.
    – A C
    Commented Oct 13, 2018 at 17:45
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    Whether "man" is equivalent to "human" depends on context. A sentence that explicitly distinguishes between them is obviously not such a context.
    – Barmar
    Commented Oct 13, 2018 at 19:59

2 Answers 2

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Gender. "Man" is male. The worlds richest woman is currently Alice Walton, who owns the very successful WalMart retail chain, and who is reportedly worth about $40 billion.

It's confusing because English has no neutral gender (for individual human beings, anyway), so male nouns and pronouns are often used to include both men and women. However, this is not true in every case, particularly when a writer wants to distinguish between the two.

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    Not sure what exactly you mean by "no neutral gender", as it is perfectly cromulent, and English has an assortment of nouns (such as person) that are neutral.
    – chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic-
    Commented Oct 13, 2018 at 17:03
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    Hasn't the richest person in the world almost always been the richest man? Why would Time feel the need to emphasize this distinction? It seems like they might have meant to say "not only richest in America, but richest in the world", since the two are frequently distinct.
    – Barmar
    Commented Oct 13, 2018 at 17:45
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    I'd say it's confusing because historically the richest person in the world has virtually always been a man (some ancient monarchs may have bucked the trend, but so far as I can tell it has not been a woman in recent history). So that sentence is more aspirational than offering any practical information. Now, a sentence that said something like "Jane Doe has just become not only the world’s richest woman, but the richest person in the world" would really be news. I hope it happens in my lifetime.
    – 1006a
    Commented Oct 13, 2018 at 18:23
  • @Barmar no idea, but nevertheless that's the reason for the qualification
    – Andrew
    Commented Oct 13, 2018 at 19:09
  • @chrylis fair enough. Edited
    – Andrew
    Commented Oct 13, 2018 at 19:11
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You’ve overlooked the fact that over 50% of the persons in the world aren’t men...

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