Last night, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos toppled Microsoft¡¯s own Bill Gates to become the world¡¯s richest man. Unfortunately for him, he didn¡¯t retain the title for very long.
Gates has held the throne for four years now, until Bezos was finally able to surpass him when Amazon¡¯s stock price rose 1.8 percent in the late hours of Thursday, making him $1.5 billion richer overnight.
Bezos had a net worth of $90.9 billion yesterday, just over Gates¡¯ $90.7 billion. Now, a few hours after his feat, Amazon¡¯s stock has settled down once again, putting Bezos firmly in the number 2 spot behind Gates.
Financial analysts yesterday attributed Amazon¡¯s gradual rise in stock prices over the past year to Amazon Prime. Not only has the service been attracting newer customer thanks to its free Prime Video subscription, but they also claimed that users were then less likely to shop in retail stores. However, Forbes had another clarification on the matter.
Gates pointing to his position on the world's richest person list (Reuters)
According to the publication, the only reason Bezos even had a shot at the number one spot is because of Gates¡¯ charity donations. ¡°Bezos would be nowhere close to being the world's wealthiest person had Gates not given so much of his fortune to philanthropy. Gates, who created the Giving Pledge with Buffett to encourage billionaires to give at least half of their wealth to charitable causes, had given away $31.1 billion over the course of his lifetime through end of 2016. Forbes estimates that Bezos, who has not signed the pledge, had given approximately $100 million to charity through the end of 2015."
And yet, Bezos¡¯s climb has been a pretty remarkable journey. No one thought Amazon would be the resounding success it is today when he started the online retailer in his garage in 1995. Today, it¡¯s taken it¡¯s founder from the fourth-richest man in the world all the way up to the number one spot, if only for a few hours. And if we know anything about Bezos, the way he¡¯s probably going to top that is by hopping aboard one of his Blue Origin space company rockets and shuttling off to visit new horizons.