Amazon’s Founder & CEO Jeff Bezos has now become the richest man in the world, overtaking Bill Gates. This comes after Amazon’s stock rose by 1.3% reaching $1,065.92 during trading earlier today. Because of the surge in stock price, Bezos’ net worth is now $90.9 billion making him the richest person in the world. He has overtaken Bill Gates whose net worth currently stands at $90.7 billion. It’s the first time Bezos has become the richest person in the world. Bill Gates had earlier held the title since 2013.
There was an instance however when Spanish retaill tycoon Amancio Ortega had become the richest man in the world on Forbes’ real time rankings, but that lasted for two day only. Amazon’s shares have more than 40 percent this year which has helped Bezos add more than $24 billion to his net worth this year alone. In the process, he has moved from being the fourth richest person to the richest man on earth.
Amazon has just launched its Prime Now service in Singapore after months of speculations and rumors. Their notable acuqisition this year includes American organic food supermarket chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion and Middle Eastern ecommerce giant Souq.com for $580 million.
Whether Bezos remains the richest person at the end of trading today remains to be seen but at the time of writing this, Amazon’s share prices have surged even more and now stand at $1,079.34.
