
He is also the third richest person in America behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
Jeff Bezos is now the third richest person in America, thanks to huge gains by his brainchild Amazon.com this year.
He’s also the fifth richest in the world after the 51-year-old CEO of the online retailing giant saw his fortune jump $2.9 billion to $53.2 billion, mostly due to big increases in Amazon shares — 93 percent of his fortune comes from his Amazon ownership, according to a Bloomberg report.
His increase in wealth causes him to leapfrog the infamous Koch brothers Charles and David.
Bezos has come from almost nowhere to jump the very top echelons of wealth. His net worth increased by an amazing 86 percent this year due to strong growth at Amazon as its cloud segment business starts to take off. That represents a $24.6 billion increase in wealth over 2015, the largest of anyone in the world, and bigger than the combined increase of the founders of Facebook and Google.
By comparison, retailer Walmart’s Walton family lost more than $40 billion in net worth as the retailer is losing market share to companies like Amazon. That trend will continue if the economy continues to improve and Wal-Mart can’t change its image as a place to shop to save money as opposed to being a preferred destination. With more disposable income, Americans are likely to go to places where they enjoy shopping, like Amazon.
Amazon has just posted its third quarter financial results, and sales are up big: about 23 percent. A news release was published on its website, which can be found here.
Leave a Reply