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