[imagesource: Patrick Pleul / dpa via ZUMA Press]

Working out the net worth of the wealthiest people in the world is never that straightforward.

The net worths of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are largely connected to the ever-shifting worth of Tesla and Amazon respectively, for example, with share prices fluctuating throughout the day.

You can pin down a rough amount, which is what the Forbes real-time billionaires list does pretty well.

As of 11:40AM today, here’s what the top of that pile looks like:

Image: Forbes

As you can see, there is plenty of breathing room between Musk and the chasing pack and he’s worth almost twice as much as Bill Gates.

However, in an interview released over the weekend, Musk says he doesn’t think he’s the right person to top that list.

Fortune below:

Musk may be the world’s richest man in theory, but he’s under no illusion that he actually holds the title.

Who does?

Russian President Vladimir Putin, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO says.

“I do think that Putin is significantly richer than me,” Musk told Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Business Insider’s parent company, Axel Springer, in a recent interview.

Well, he has a point.

Pinning down Putin’s net worth, as with most Russian billionaires and oligarchs, is very tricky.

We have outlined why many believe the Russian president is actually the world’s wealthiest person but it’s worth repeating a few key bits of information:

Putin is rumored to be the owner of a beautiful 190,000 square-foot mansion sitting atop a cliff that overlooks the Black Sea. This coastal property is reputed as the largest private residence in the country and serves as his private palace endearingly called “Putin’s Country Cottage”…

Apart from the Black Sea Mansion and 19 other houses and 700 cars, Putin supposedly has a collection of 58 aircraft and helicopters including a $716 million dollar plane called “The Flying Kremlin” that has a toilet made of gold…

Some say he’s worth $200 billion or so, and others put the figure at significantly higher than that, but it’s all a bit of a guessing game.

The crafty methods used by Russia’s wealthiest citizens to hide their assets (the same methods used by billionaires across the globe) make tools like the Russian Asset Tracker all the more valuable.

When it comes to Putin, we have to mention the thoughts of Nate Sibley, a researcher at the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative:

“When people say he’s worth such and such, what does that mean?” he asked. “Are they really saying that he’s going to cash in and retire to St. Tropez?”

If he does, he’s unlikely to bump into Musk, who appears to spend his free time on Twitter.

That could change if the billionaire follows through on various hints he’s given about building his own social media platform:

Am giving serious thought to this

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 27, 2022

It certainly can’t be any worse than Donald Trump’s social media platform, ironically named ‘Truth’.

[sources:forbes&fortune]