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Clearwater native Sara Blakely joins Forbes billionaires list

The Spanx founder is a graduate of Clearwater High School.
Credit: AP
Spanx founder Sara Blakely attends the TIME 100 gala, celebrating the 100 most influential people in the world, at the Frederick P. Rose Hall on Tuesday, April 24, 2012 in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini)

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Forbes Magazine released its annual tally of billionaires on Wednesday, reporting that a record 1,226 people around the globe have a net worth in the ten digits. That's up 1% from last year's total.

But it wasn't an easy year for the superrich - about 441 list members lost wealth during the year, nearly equal to the 461 who expanded their fortunes. And only a fraction, 180, held steady, according to the magazine.

The group's total combined net worth is up 2% at $4.6 trillion. The average worth of a list member is $3.7 billion.

One of the most noteworthy additions was self-made billionaire Sara Blakely, the founder of women's slimming undergarments company Spanx, who joined the list this year. The Tampa Bay area native graduated from Clearwater High School and earned her bachelor's degree at Florida State University.

The 51-year-old now calls Atlanta home.

The Forbes list contains some familiar names, too.

Carlos Slim of Mexico remained the world's richest man for the third year in a row with a $69 billion fortune, down $5 billion from last year. Forbes attributed the drop in Slim's fortune to the decline in share prices for regional cell phone carrier America Movil, his largest holding.

Bill Gates of Microsoft came in second at $61 billion, up $5 billion as his company's shares hit a 10-year high. And Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway came in at third place with a $44 billion fortune, down $6 billion from the prior year.

There were a number of new faces on the list as well.

Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal and founder of Tesla Motors, joined the list as the world's 634th richest person as the value of stock in his electric car company rose. The widow of Apple's Steve Jobs, Laurene Powell Jobs, took his spot on the list.

The U.S. is still home to the most billionaires in the world with 425. But there are now billionaires in 58 countries from Peru to Morocco. Russia and China follow the U.S. but have fewer billionaires this year at 95 and 96 respectively, down from 115 and 101 who made the list last year.

    

10 Tampa Bay's Atlanta sister-station 11Alive contributed to this report.

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