One particular billionaire by the name of Jeff Bezos is having his net worth skyrocket through its previous known peak, even after he has recently relinquished a quarter of his own stake in Amazon.com Inc. due to his recent divorce settlement that took place last year.
The shares of this Seattle-based retailer surged a whopping 4.4% to a new record of $2,878.70 on Wednesday. This boosted the billionaire's world-leading fortune to an amazing $171.6 billion! This definitely tops his well-known previous wealth of $167.7 billion that was set up on September 4, 2018, according to the previous Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Jeff Bezos' biggest gains so far
His gains were recorded as $56.7 billion for this year along which is an underscore in the widening wealth gap that exists in the United States during the current worst economic downturn ever since the Great Depression. Initial public offerings, otherwise known as IPOs, and their buoyant equity markets have already bolstered mega-fortunes and all of these happened while tens of millions of individuals have lost their only jobs.
Just this week, after receiving several complaints about ending the pandemic hazard pay, Amazon noted that it would spend just about $500 million in order to give one-time $500 bonuses to almost all of their front-line workers. The company has also declined to comment on its founder's own wealth.
Amazon has definitely been on a tear, with the global pandemic accelerating and the consumers shift towards e-commerce from the usual brick-and-mortar retail, Bezos owns a solid 11% of the entire stock, which compromises the huge bulk of his personal fortune.
New billionaires including the Amazon divorcee
Most of those billionaires with the biggest wealth gains have been hailing from the tech sector. These include companies like Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk who had another $25.8 billion added to his net worth since January 1, Zoom founder Eric Yuan who has just about quadrupled his net worth to $13.1 billion.
Other people who have gained from these companies are Mackenzie Bezos who then acquired a 4% stake in the whole Amazon company after the couple had split, shooting her net worth up to %56.9 billion and has even climbed all the way to number 12 on Bloomberg's own ranking. She recently was seen leapfrogging Alice Walton along with Julia Flesher Koch to finally become the world's own second-wealthiest woman and even now trails only L'Oreal heiress known as Francoise Bettencourt Meyers.
The shocking losers
Not every billionaire has been able to come out ahead this current year. Spain's own Amancio Ortega, the powerful titan behind the known Zara fast-fashion brand, has already lost $19.2 billion, which is the most out of anyone on the existing Bloomberg Index. Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s very own Warren Buffet has had his wealth drop by $19 billion!
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