Jeff Bezos is the world richest man, wealthier than ever after amassing a $200 billion fortune. He crossed a milestone previously unseen in the nearly four decades Forbes has been tracking net worths.
Bezos’ net worth was up by $4.9 billion, fueled by the coronavirus pandemic. More consumers changed their habits as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. They felt safer to shop online through his Amazon portal during the lockdown.
The 56-year-old is the world’s first-ever person to amass a staggering $200 billion in a pandemic.
Jeff Bezos the Amazon founder and CEO is worth $204.6 billion that is nearly $90 billion more than the world’s second-richest person, Bill Gates.
Bill Gates is the Microsoft founder and currently worth $116.1 billion the world's first-ever Centi-billionaire.
Amazon stock is up nearly 80% since the beginning of the year and Bezos’ net worth, which was roughly $115 billion on January 1, has skyrocketed almost simultaneously.
Bezos’ roughly 11% stake in Amazon makes up more than 90% of his fortune. He also owns the Washington Post, aerospace company Blue Origin and other private investments.
Experts believe that Bezos would be even richer had he not gone through the most expensive divorce settlement in history last year.
He split from ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, last July and agreed to give her 25% of his Amazon stake, a chunk of stock now worth $63 billion.
Even after giving away $1.7 billion in charitable gifts earlier this year, Scott is currently the world’s 14th-richest person and second-richest woman, behind L’Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers.
Today, 49-year-old Elon Musk overtook Mark Zuckerberg to become the world's third-richest person with a wealth of $115.4billion after Tesla shares surged 500%. Elon Musk is also the founder of PayPal.
Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook, is estimated to be worth $111billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Tesla shares have been on a meteoric rise since October last year and were only briefly dampened by the coronavirus shutdown which hit in March.
It comes after the company began turning a consistent profit, meaning it could soon be added to the blue-chip S&P 500 index, further boosting its value.
The share value hit an all-time high of $935 per share on June 12 and had more than doubled again by the end of last month, hitting $2,213 on August 28.
Tesla used a 5:1 split, meaning each shareholder now owns five times the number of shares they did before, while new investors will pay a fifth the price for new shares.
The company saw its overall value rise 10 per cent following the split, as new investors rushed to snap up the cheaper stocks.
Tesla also announced on Tuesday that it is planning a fresh round of fundraising, aiming to raise $5billion through stock sales.
The news sent the company's stock up by another 3 per cent. Tesla is now worth an estimated $440billion.
Last week, Musk unveiled Neuralink technology which he has invested $80million in, in the hopes of making humans able to control computers with their brains.
The three little pig's demo, as he called it, showed an animal named Gertrude with the brain implant.
While she snuffed around in a pen, viewers saw her brain activity on a large screen.
The live stream also gave the first look of the redesigned chip, which is the size of a large coin attached to wires that replace a piece of the skull when connected to the brain.
Although the public may have hoped to see a person use the powers of the chip, the event suggests Neuralink is getting closer to Musk's vision of allowing humans to control computers and smartphones with their mind.
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