Jeff Bezos lost his title as the world’s richest person Thursday after Amazon’s latest earnings report didn’t live up to Wall Street expectations.
Forbes reported that Bezos’ fortune, which is mostly tied up in the value of Amazon stock, totaled $103.7 billion as of Thursday night. Bezos now trails Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, whose net worth clocked in at $105.7 billion, per Forbes.
Amazon stock fell 8 percent in after-hours trading after Amazon came up short of expectations for profits, primarily due to increased spending on the Prime one-day shipping initiative. The stock slide cost Bezos $7 billion in just a few hours, per CNBC. Amazon stock is down another 2 percent Friday morning, further cutting into Bezos’ on-paper wealth.
Amazon stock is up 15 percent so far this year, but it has dropped 11 percent in the last three months.
Bezos took the title of the richest person in the world in 2017, passing Gates as Amazon’s stock surged. A year ago, Bezos’ net worth dwarfed that of Gates.
When Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos divorced earlier this year after 25 years of marriage, the Amazon CEO’s wealth took a hit. As part of the divorce, Jeff Bezos transferred a quarter of his Amazon stock to MacKenzie, giving her a net worth of $32.7 billion, per Forbes.
In August, Bezos sold off nearly $3 billion worth of Amazon stock.
Bezos has previously said that he would sell around $1 billion in stock each year to fund Blue Origin, his commercial space venture. He also owns The Washington Post.
