Amazon’s soaring share price has pushed CEO Jeff Bezos’ net worth to more than $171 billion, a new record that pushes his financial wealth back above its levels prior to his divorce settlement last year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The Seattle tech giant’s share price has climbed more than 50% since the beginning of the year, bucking national trends as businesses across the country struggle to stay afloat and millions are out of work.
Bezos owns or has voting rights to 15% of the company’s outstanding stock, according to Amazon’s latest proxy statement. Under his divorce settlement with MacKenzie Bezos last year, the Amazon founder received 75% of the couple’s Amazon shares and retained voting authority for remaining shares.
Following the divorce, MacKenzie Bezos signed The Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away the majority of her fortune to charity. Jeff Bezos has also stepped up his philanthropy in recent years, including a $10 billion climate change initiative and the $2 billion Day 1 Fund, which supports homeless services and early childhood education. Bezos’ fortune also funds the Blue Origin space venture. He has called Blue Origin his most important work of a belief that humanity must expand beyond our home planet if we are to preserve it.
Amazon has become a lifeline during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing groceries and essential items to people sheltering at home. The company has hired an additional 175,000 workers to keep up with surging demand. But the resources Amazon provides come at a cost. The company is struggling to contain COVID-19 outbreaks at warehouses across the country and faces sharp criticism for its lack of transparency about the issue.
The company said it expected to spend about $4 billion in the second quarter on COVID-19 initiatives, including safety precautions and compensation for workers on the front lines. Last week, Amazon announced it would pay $500 million worth of one-time bonuses to warehouse and delivery workers after sunsetting temporary hazard pay the company was providing during the beginning of the pandemic. Amazon says it has made more than 150 process changes to protect workers, including temperature screenings and sanitization.
Despite those initiatives, rising COVID cases in Amazon warehouses have led to walkouts, petitions, and public criticism from high-profile politicians on the left. Amazon has repeatedly declined to disclose the number of confirmed cases among its workforce, but a crowdsourced employee count puts the number near 1,600.
Bezos’ record wealth has become a flashpoint on the national political stage and in Amazon’s hometown, Seattle. Officials in Seattle have been trying for years to pass a tax on the city’s largest businesses to fund housing and homeless services, an effort that Amazon staunchly opposed in the past. Amazon’s opposition helped defeat a proposal in 2018 but the Seattle City Council is trying again now that the coronavirus crisis is making budget shortfalls more acute.
