- Jeff Bezos becomes the first person to touch the $200 billion net worth, reported Forbes. Amid the ongoing pandemic Amazon witnessed highest market cap.
Jeff Bezos becomes the first person to touch the $200 billion net worth, reported Forbes. Amid the ongoing pandemic Amazon witnessed highest market cap.
As for Jeff Bezos, things are going well. Nice. Amazon’s stock, the e-commerce and cloud computing business he created 26 years ago, reached all-time highs on Tuesday afternoon, bringing the market capitalization of the company to the highest level. That makes Bezos, who owns 11.1 percent of the firm, worth a $200 billion record-breaking market close on Wednesday — Forbes’ highest net worth has been monitoring billionaires in nearly four decades.
Bezos first claimed the title of the richest individual in the world in July 2017, but this only lasted for a couple of hours when Amazon recorded a big miss on earnings in the second quarter the same day. After a strong third-quarter earnings report, Bezos rose again to top in October 2017 — and stayed there. He also became the first centibillionaire to feature on October 2018’s The Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, with a net worth of $160 billion. Until that, the number one position had long been occupied by Microsoft’s cofounder-turned-philanthropist Bill Gates. Today Bezos is $85.2 billion wealthier than Gates, the world’s second-wealthiest individual, worth $115.4 billion.
As part of their divorce settlement, which was finalized in the summer of 2019, Bezos transferred a quarter of his Amazon interest to his ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos. Today MacKenzie Bezos is worth $59.8 billion, making her the world’s second-richest woman. Had Jeff Bezos owned those shares, today his net worth would be around $240bn.
Amazon and Bezos have been facing criticism since April to have insufficient protection and working conditions during the pandemic. Warehouse staff began openly criticizing the lack of security procedures, with a few alleging workers had not been informed when Covid-19 was diagnosed with colleagues. Amazon engineering workers then held a virtual strike in April, in solidarity with their colleagues working in the warehouse.
Also, Amazon has worked hard to persuade the public that it has made significant changes to the conditions at work. The organization has provided protective equipment to its employees, installed sanitizing stations, temperature monitoring, and other safety measures in its warehouses, according to a corporate blog post. Amazon has produced filmed news reports that were sent to local news outlets in its warehouses to demonstrate new security measures.
Notwithstanding concerns from staff, business is booming at Amazon and Bezos continues to get richer by the day.
