November 24, 2017
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is now worth $100 billion, further securing his title of the world’s richest man. According to Bloomberg, he’s the first to reach the $100 billion milestone since Bill Gates did in 1999.
“World’s Richest Man” is a title Bezos officially earned in October when he beat Gates for the title, a feat he also briefly accomplished in July. Before July, Gates has held the top spot since May 2013.
Bezos started 2017 as the fourth richest person in the world, and surpassed both Inditex (ztstf, +2.98%) founder Amancio Ortega and Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffet this year as well. Bezos’ climbing net worth is due in part to an exceptionally profitable year for Amazon, which saw the acquisition of Whole Foods.
The Amazon (amzn, +2.66%) founder’s fortune broke $100 billion after rising some $2.4 billion this week, thanks to an increase in Amazon’s stock price tied to expectations for booming Black Friday sales.
While Gates and Bezos have both been vying for the top spot on the world’s richest person list for some time, Gates made it slightly easier for Bezos to surpass him this year when he donated 5% of his net worth (roughly $4.6 billion) to charity in August. Unlike Gates, Bezos has given very little of his fortune to charity so far.
Gates, who currently has a net worth of $86.8 billion, is estimated to have had a net worth of $150 billion had he not given so much of his fortune to charity.
Analysis from the Institute for Policy Studies recently found it would take the combined wealth of about 160 million Americans to equal the net worth of the world’s three richest people—Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett.