Warren Buffett is once again the second-richest person on the planet, and he has President-elect Donald Trump to thank for it.
Buffett added $US5.8 billion ($7.7 billion) to his fortune this week, leading gains for the world's wealthiest as he leaped over Spain's Amancio Ortega and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos to reclaim the No. 2 spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a $US70.6 billion fortune.
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The only richer person on the planet is Microsoft founder Bill Gates, with an estimated personal wealth of $US86.8 billion.
Not surprisingly, the 86-year old Sage of Omaha had some sanguine advice after the shock election outcome, predicting the sharemarket "will be higher in 10, 20, 30 years from now."
"It would have been with Hillary, and it will be with Trump," he said in a CNN interview on Friday.
'Instructor-in-chief' needed
Buffett became one of the richest people in the world by betting on US businesses like insurers, utilities and a railroad, and said he expects them to thrive, even when politicians implement policies that he sees as counterproductive.
![Warren Buffett rallied for Hillary Clinton. But now that Trump has won, he's got a $7.7 billion consolation prize.](/web/20161112230727im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/j/n/i/e/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gsnr83.png/1478908238197.jpg)
He pointed to Trump's plan to dismantle the North American Free Trade Agreement as damaging to the world's largest economy in aggregate, even if increased imports did cost jobs in some US regions.
"I think it's a bad idea, a very bad idea, but I'm not going to say it will cause a recession," said Buffett. "Any time you start playing around with retaliatory-type trade things, it's very likely that the other side is going to start playing too. That's been the history."
Buffett said that an "instructor-in-chief" is needed to sell the public on the benefits of increased international commerce. He also said that many Republicans in Congress support free trade deals, which could limit Trump's chances of following through on his vows.
"This is not exclusive to Donald Trump," Buffett said. "There are a lot of things in campaigns that don't happen after an election."
There are a lot of things in campaigns that don't happen after an election
Warren Buffett
Billionaires' bonanza
The world's richest added $US15 billion ($19.9 billion) to their fortunes this week at the close of trading on Thursday in New York, according to the Bloomberg index.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20161112230727im_/http://www.smh.com.au/cqstatic/12z7v7/buffetttrump.png)
Mexico's wealthiest person, Carlos Slim, saw his fortune sink $US5.4 billion as the peso fell to a record 20.78 per dollar. Amancio Ortega, founder of Spanish clothing retail chain Zara, lost $US2.5 billion and fell to the No. 3 spot after Buffett.
A slump in technology stocks amid concern that Trump's policies would harm international trade shaved almost $US16 billion from the fortunes of the 56 richest moguls in that industry in the two days following the election. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg lost $US1.6 billion of net worth while Amazon boss Bezos was down by $US3.9 billion.
Billionaire donors to the two campaigns overwhelmingly favoured Clinton, with 17 members of the Bloomberg index giving $US21.1 million to her campaign and its supporting political action committees through September 20, and 12 in the group donating $US1.02 million to Trump's election effort.
Bloomberg
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