PRIME POSITION
Amazon boss Bezos jumps past Musk as world’s richest
AMAZON boss Jeff Bezos has reclaimed the title of the world’s richest person after dethroning Elon Musk.
Bezos, 60, topped the Bloomberg Billionaires Index for the first time since 2021, with £158billion.
The American, boosted by a surge in the share price of his online retail giant, surpassed Tesla boss Musk, who is worth £156bn.
Musk lost £24.6bn from his net worth over the past year while Bezos gained £18.4bn.
It comes after Bezos, also owner of Amazon Prime TV, sold off £3.15bn worth of shares since mid-February.
In January, a US judge blocked Musk’s 2018 pay package, worth around £40bn, that had helped make him the world’s richest person.
His electric car company Tesla has suffered a 24% drop in shares this year.
Musk, 52, who also owns social media site X and founded space exploration firm SpaceX, was named the world’s richest person last May.
The South African-born American edged out France’s Bernard Arnault.
Arnault, 75, runs one of the world’s biggest conglomerates, LVMH, which includes luxury brands Louis Vuitton, Dior and Celine.
Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg, 39, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, 68, also make the top five. Bezos, engaged to TV anchor Lauren Sanchez, 54, could nearly clear the Czech Republic’s £200bn external debt with his wealth.
Amazon also revealed a major expansion in its logistics operation across Europe last year. Bezos continues to enjoy the high life as he and his fiancee were seen with the Kardashians at a Beyonce gig in California last September.