With a total net worth amounting to $90 billion, Jeff Bezos, the Founder and the Chief Executive Officer at Amazon, has finally overtaken Bill Gates to become the world’s richest person.
The recent increase in the stock fortune of Amazon is what really pushed the net worth of its CEO forward by leaps. Bezos had a net worth of $89 billion when the stock markets closed trading yesterday night while that of Microsoft’s CEO Bill Gates was $90 billion. As the trading proceeded this Thursday, the stock prices of Amazon went up while that of Microsoft went down, pushing Bezos past Bill Gates in terms of net worth.
The Amazon’s stock price shoot by more than $15 per share. This added $1.4 billion to the Bezos’ net worth who owns about 17% of the company, pushing his worth to a total of $90.6 billion. This net worth was $500 million more than that of Bill Gates making him the World’s most richest person. As per the Forbes records (which start post 1987), Jeff has become the seventh person to be the World’s richest person.
It would be worth mentioning here that Bill Gates might again become the World’s most wealthiest person should the stocks tremble again. But considering that Amazon’s momentum still hasn’t stalled, he would most certainly be the World’s most wealthiest person in near future. However, it would have been much difficult for Jeff to fill up the vacuum if Bill Gates hadn’t donated a tremendous amount of his wealth to charity. As reported by Forbes, Bill Gates donated as much as $31.1 billion in philanthropy as of 2016 while Bezos had donated $100 million till 2015.
Bill Gates also partnered with another multi-billionaire Warren Buffet, CEO at Berkshire Hathaway, starting the Giving Pledge. The foundation was started to motivate the billionaires to give as much as half their wealth towards philanthropy.
Bezos started Amazon as an online book-selling platform, from a house garage back in 1990s. All the way to 2017 the company rose to this point, having pushed its founder to the throne of the World’s richest person. Recently, the company bought Whole Foods, giving it a significant standing as a traditional brick-and-mortar store as well. Jeff has now been a billionaire for nearly two decades.
Update: As per the most recent reports, Amazon stock price, on run-time, dropped by 2% causing Jeff Bezos to slid below Bill Gates. Read — In just a few hours, Bill Gates beats Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest man again!
Image via Forbes, News — Forbes
