The Treasury’s cash balance fell to just under $49.5 billion on Wednesday, as the U.S. he came close to running of cash to pay your bills.
That was significantly less than the $316 billion the department had in operating cash, which is held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the beginning of the month.
How empty is the treasury coffers? By comparison, $49.5 billion is on par Gross domestic product Azerbaijan and Tunisia and lower than the net worth of the two dozen richest people in the world. Of course, much of the assets of these billionaires are tied up in stocks rather than liquid assets.
Here is a list of people with a higher net worth than the US cash reserves Bloomberg News Billionaire Index since Thursday. (According to the news agency’s editorial policy, its billionaire owner Michael Bloomberg is not included in the index. Forbes is, however estimates his net worth to $94.5 billion.)
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Bernard Arnault, CEO of luxury group LVMH: $189 billion
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Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter: $179 billion
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Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon: $139 billion
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Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft: $125 billion
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Larry Ellison, co-founder and executive chairman of Oracle: $116 billion
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Steve Ballmer, investor and former CEO of Microsoft: $113 billion
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Larry Page, Google co-founder: $112 billion
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Warren Buffett, investor: $111 billion
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Sergey Brin, Google co-founder: $106 billion
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Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook: $92.3 billion
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Carlos Slim, investor: $90.3 billion
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Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, heiress to the L’Oréal fortune and board member: $87.2 billion
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Mukesh Ambani, chairman of energy group Reliance Industries: $83.7 billion
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Amancio Ortega, founder of fashion group Inditex: $67.1 billion
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Jim Walton, heir to the Wal-Mart fortune: $66.6 billion
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Rob Walton, heir to the Wal-Mart fortune: $64.9 billion
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Alice Walton, Wal-Mart heiress: $63.8 billion
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Gautam Adani, founder and chairman of conglomerate Adani Group: $63.4 billion
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Jacqueline Mars, heiress and co-owner of candy maker Mars: $61.7 billion
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John Mars, heir and chairman of Mars: $61.7 billion
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Zhong Shanshan, founder and chairman of bottled water company Nongfu Spring: $61.6 billion
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Julia Flesher Koch and family, heirs of businessman David Koch: $60.6 billion
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Charles Koch, CEO of industrial conglomerate Koch Industries: $60.4 billion
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Michael Dell, CEO and Chairman of Dell Technologies: $53.4 billion
