Amazon boss breaks own wealth record
The world’s wealthiest man has just become richer than anyone has ever been once again, just a year after surrendering a chunk of his fortune in the most expensive divorce in history.
Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, commands a net worth that rose to US$171.6 billion (NZ$262.5b) this week, more than the GDP of Hungary or Algeria, according to World Bank estimates.
A spike in global demand for delivered items because of the pandemic has driven Amazon’s share price up by more than 50 per cent this year, even as it has faced anger and criticism over employee safety standards in its warehouses and other workplaces.
The valuation by the Bloomberg Billionaires
Index broke the previous mark that Bezos,
56, set in September 2018, when his holdings were valued at US$167.7b. Four months later he and his wife of 25 years, MacKenzie Bezos, announced their impending divorce.
Last June it emerged that Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post and Blue Origin, the commercial rocket company, had agreed to transfer a quarter of their jointly-held Amazon stock to his former wife, equivalent to a 4 per cent stake in the company.
At the time the settlement was valued at US$38b, making Ms Bezos, 50, who married Bezos a year before he set up Amazon, the fourth-richest woman in the world. She is now the 13th-richest person on the planet, and the second-wealthiest woman, after Francoise Bettencourt, the granddaughter of the founder of L’Oreal. Her net worth has soared to US$57.2b.
The company’s success has underscored the widening wealth gap in America during what is the country’s most daunting economic crisis since the Depression of the 1930s.