Jeff Bezos, already the world’s richest man by a wide margin, added $ 13 billion (£ 10 billion) to his personal wealth in a single day.
Amazon’s stock price has continued to rise amid the coronavirus pandemic, as people around the world choose to shop online instead of going out.
On Monday, the e-commerce company’s shares soared 8 percent, bringing Bezos’ estimated net worth to $ 189.3 billion (£ 149 billion).
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According to Bloomberg’s analysis, the 56-year-old has seen his fortune grow by around $ 74 billion (£ 58 billion) in 2020 alone.
The publication said Monday’s increase was the largest on record for its billionaires index, first released in 2012.
Bezos’s personal wealth is roughly nine times that of Britain’s richest man, James Dyson, whose fortune stands at £ 16 billion, according to the wealthy Sunday Times list.
It is now also worth more than the UK’s largest company, AstraZeneca, which is valued at £ 118 billion on the London Stock Exchange.
Bezos’ wealth continues to grow despite a costly divorce from his ex-wife MacKenzie last year.
She received 4 percent from the company as part of the deal and saw her personal wealth skyrocket to around $ 62 billion (£ 48.7 billion), making her the 13th richest person in the world.
In 2018 Bezos launched a $ 2 billion (£ 1.5 billion) fund focused on education programs for the homeless and earlier this year he pledged $ 10 billion (£ 8 billion) to cope with climate change .
But critics have accused Bezos of donating much less money than other philanthropists, such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.
Buffet, CEO of US conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, has donated around $ 34.5 billion (£ 27 billion) to charities since he promised to donate all of his shares in the company.
Meanwhile, estimates suggest that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $ 46 billion (£ 41 billion) to charitable causes worldwide.
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