Jeff Bezos is the living embodiment of the old adage that “the rich get richer”, with the net worth of the Amazon founder on Wednesday surpassing the $ 200 billion for the first time.
Bezos’ personal wealth rose to the current surprising level, as the share price of his e-commerce company reached a record high of $ 3,438 per share.
At the same time, a performance in Tesla shares has pushed CEO Elon Musk’s net worth above $ 100 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, a ranking of the 500 richest people in the world.
The escalation of wealth is particularly visible at the upper end of the index and is largely driven by a rally in technical stocks, as the coronavirus is prompting consumers to buy more of them online.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, for example, also saw his net worth surpass $ 100 billion this month.
Increasing income inequality has led to narrowing the gap by progressive lawmakers, including Senator Bernie Sanders, who this month proposed legislation to tax “extreme” wealth gains amid the ongoing pandemic.
Bezos, who started Amazon in 1994, has been the richest person on the planet since 2017.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the second richest person in the world, and has amassed a personal fortune that is now worth $ 124 billion.
Apple CEO Tim Cook recently became a billionaire as the market price of his company – the most valuable on the planet – rose to $ 2 trillion. Cook’s net worth is not even a quarter of that of the person at the bottom of the Bloomberg list, Indian industrial Vikram Lal, whose personal wealth is estimated at $ 4.5 billion.
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