Coronavirus: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has raised $ 24 billion in wealth

The wealth of Amazon founder and CEO has grown by $ 24 billion after high demand for online merchandise purchases raised his company’s stock price to a new high.

According to the billionaires on the Bloomberg index, Jeff Bezos has $ 138 billion in wealth and has strengthened his position as the richest man in the world.

Bezos benefits from an increase in online purchases made by people forced to stay home due to a coronavirus outbreak.

Amazon is currently hiring thousands of employees to meet the growing demand. However, some workers criticize the company for protecting workers from the spread of the coronavirus.

Bezos owns 11% of Amazon shares. On Tuesday alone, the company’s shares rose 5.3%.

The Walton family, owned by US retailer Wal-Mart, also benefited from the quarantine.

This year, the Waltons’ wealth grew 5% to $ 169 billion, making them the world’s richest family, reports Bloomberg.

As millions of people work from home right now, the wealth of Eric’s video conferencing founder Eric Yuan has more than doubled to $ 7.4 billion.

At the same time, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, this year the world’s 500 richest people have lost $ 553 billion.

Investors in the global oil and gas industry have seen a sharp drop in share values, due to falling commodity prices, a decline in global demand, and a dispute in Saudi Arabia and Russia that are resolved last week.

The path to glory

Bezos founded Amazon in 1995, using $ 100,000 in personal and family money. He quit his job at a hedge fund at the age of 30 after seeing statistics about the rapid growth of the Internet.

He was joined by his wife, McKenzie, whom he met when they both worked at DE Shaw’s New York hedge fund. They have four children.

The couple divorced in 2019. Mackenzie Bezos received $ 38 billion, including a 4% stake in Amazon.

Within a month of its launch, Amazon has already shipped orders to all 50 US states. USA And 45 countries, according to the biography of the founder of All Stores: Jeff Bezos and Amazon Era, written by Brad Stone.

In Amazon’s first five years of sales, sales have increased from $ 511,000 to more than $ 1.6 billion. Investors with known names are interested in the company.

The company became a corporation in 1997, raising $ 54 million. She transformed Bezos, who once helped sort books, into one of the richest people in the world under the age of 35.

In 1999, Time magazine named him among the youngest “People of the Year” at the time, calling him the “King of Electronic Commerce.”

Do you want to receive the most important news in your messenger? Subscribe to ours Telegram or Viber!