Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos finished Tuesday with a record net worth of $ 197.8 billion, the highest fortune recorded by Forbes magazine in nearly four decades of tracking down billionaires.
Amazon was the best performer in the S&P 500 index on Tuesday, recording a gain of 4.1%, and ending the day at $ 1.66 trillion of market value, according to a report by the American magazine.
As a result, Bezos, who owns 11.1% of the company's shares, became $ 7.2 billion richer, and the S&P closed at a higher value than its peak in February, before the Corona pandemic hit America hard.
With the rise in Amazon stocks in recent months, the gap between the wealth of Bezos and Gates, the second richest person in the world, has widened to $ 83.8 billion today. The difference between them is equivalent to that of Elon Musk, who is now the fifth richest person in the world, with a fortune of 85.6 billion. Tesla shares rose 2.8% on Tuesday, after rising 11% on Monday.
In February, the Amazon founder sold $ 1.7 billion of his shares in Amazon. In early August, he sold another 3.1 billion shares. Documents submitted to the Securities Commission on Tuesday also showed that Bezos gave 2,941 shares of Amazon on August 14 - valued at $ 9.3 million - to an undisclosed nonprofit.
Bezos' ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, who got a quarter of his stake in Amazon as part of their divorce settlement last year, increased her net worth as the third richest woman in the world, and on Tuesday, she achieved a net worth of $ 62.7 billion, an increase of $ 2 billion in one day. Scott announced in July that it had provided nearly $ 1.7 billion to 116 nonprofits across the country.
Apple breaks the two trillion dollar mark
According to Forbes magazine, too, Apple became the first American company whose market value exceeded $ 2 trillion, and the company's shares rose by almost 55% in the current world so far, and the last period witnessed a great recovery in its sales and achieved record profits in the third quarter in late July amounting to 60 Billion Dollars, Benefit from Home Work Trends and Strong Online Sales.
Growing inequality
Musk doubled his fortune 3 times during the epidemic, joining the list of 12 Americans whose combined wealth is worth more than a trillion dollars during the pandemic, and their combined wealth increased by 283 billion, an increase of nearly 40%, according to a report by the American business Insider. Musk made the biggest gains, tripling his personal fortune with Tesla's stock soaring this year.
The list of the wealthy is dominated by other tech giants, including Bezos and Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Byrne.
In comparison, American household wealth declined during the first quarter by 5.6%, the largest decline since the 1950s, and more than half of American households lost income this year, and the country's wealth and income inequality had already reached record levels before the pandemic.