Jeff Bezos crossed into new billionaire territory on Wednesday with another surge in Amazon stock that pushed the CEO’s net worth to more than $200 billion. Forbes called it the largest fortune ever amassed.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk also marked a new milestone — albeit one that makes him half as rich as Bezos — when he reached $100 billion in net worth for the first time. And Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie Scott will be the richest woman in the world any day now as she rose to 13th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $66.2 billion, just barely behind L’Oreal SA heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers.
Bezos reached the $202 billion mark by adding $5.22 billion to his fortune on Wednesday as Amazon stock jumped 2.85% to close at $3,441.85 a share. Earlier this month, Bezos sold 1 million shares of Amazon stock valued at $3 billion.
Fueled by online shopping habits during the pandemic, Amazon stock is up more than 80% since the beginning of the year. Bezos’ net worth has rocketed right along with it after starting the year at $115 billion.
Scott, who has a 4% stake in Amazon following her divorce from Bezos last year, gained $1.86 billion on Wednesday. She previously announced that she had given nearly that much away already this year as part of a broad philanthropic mission to help fund a variety of organizations and institutions.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is second on the Bloomberg list at $124 billion ($11 billion richer than this time last year) and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gained $8.48 billion on Wednesday to hit $115 billion.
Bloomberg says the 500 richest people have gained $809 billion so far this year, a 14% increase since January, even as economies have suffered mightily under the weight of COVID-19 and millions of people have lost their jobs.
“We cannot continue to allow billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to become obscenely rich while millions of Americans face eviction, hunger and economic desperation,” Vermont Sen. and one-time Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said Wednesday in a statement reported by Bloomberg. “It’s time to fundamentally change our national priorities.”
