Jeff Bezos Is No Longer the Richest Person in the World
What goes up must come down.
For a very brief moment, Amazon god Jeff Bezos was crowned the richest person in the world, overtaking Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates as No. 1. Due mostly in part to Amazon’s stock rising on Wednesday morning, Bezos’s net worth went up to $90.9 billion USD compared to Gates’s net worth of $90.7 billion USD. For the past four years, Gates has held the top spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Bezos on the other hand, started out 2017 at fourth place, surpassing Warren Buffett and Amancio Ortega.
However, today Amazon reported its second quarter earnings, showing a profit of just $197 million USD compared to $38 billion USD in sales. This marks a 77 percent drop from the company’s $857 million USD earnings from last year. Unfortunately, this drop means Bezos’s personal fortune — considering he has nearly 80 million shares in Amazon — will also take a hit. At the close of today’s market, Bezos was back in second spot with Gates holding onto the title and his personal fortune of just over $90 billion USD.
