On Monday it was reported that Jeff Bezos reached a net worth of $150 billion, making him the richest man in modern history.
Amazon’s stocks rose by almost 2% on “Prime Day”, boosting the company founder’s net worth by $2.2 billion, according to Time.com.
Bezos’ net worth is linked directly to his company stock market performance. He owns around 16% of the Amazon (AMZN) shares.
According to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, Jeff Bezos broke a record that hasn’t been broken since 1982 – when Forbes started tracking peoples wealth. He is now approximately $50 billion richer than any other person in the world.
His net-worth is now more than what the second richest billionaire, Bill Gates, was ever worth. Even after the dot-com boom, Gates was estimated to have a net worth of $149 billion in 1999, considering today’s inflation.
Jeff Bezos became the richest man in the world last summer, with a net worth of around $90 billion, surpassing Bill Gates. Gates, who has directed a large part of his wealth to charities, now has a net worth of $95 billion.
Another billionaire who has been at the top of the list is Warren Buffet. Like Gates, Buffet has donated vast amounts of his wealth to charities. On Tuesday, Buffet broke his own record by donating $3.4 billion to 5 different charities, including the Gates Foundation.
While Bezos’ donations have been less than Gates and Buffet, earlier this year he funded scholarships for DACA students and announced in a tweet how he plans to focus more on philanthropy. A scholarship is financial support for people of high academic level and financial need to study.
