Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos

After surprising Wall Street and posting a profit in its second quarter earnings report, Amazon.com’s stock skyrocketed on Tuesday.

The Seattle company is now trading at $567 per share, up 17 percent in after-hours trading, which is an all-time high. The stock is up more than 80 percent this year.

Image via Shutterstock.
Image via Shutterstock.

With the after-hours increase, Amazon is now worth more than Walmart with a market capitalization of around $250 billion.

The huge spike also helped propel the net worth of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to new heights. Forbes reported on Tuesday that Bezos gained $7 billion after the earnings report, helping him leapfrog Oracle CEO Larry Ellison to become the fifth-richest person in the world with a net worth of $50.3 billion, according to Forbes’ data.

Amazon posted $23.18 billion in revenue and profit of $92 million, or 19 cents a share, in its second quarter earnings report. Revenue was up 20 percent from the same quarter last year. Big revenue and profit increases from the Amazon Web Services division helped Amazon increase its quarterly revenue and post a profit.

[Note: Reference to key factors driving earnings corrected since original post.]

Amazon also reported that it brought on an additional 18,000 employees in the past three months, marking the largest quarterly growth in the company’s history. Amazon now employs 183,100 worldwide.

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