Could Jeff Bezos become a trillionaire?
Jeff Bezos is worth $143 billion
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, 56, is the richest person in the world.
Bezos' wealth has topped all other billionaires in 2020, despite transferring a quarter of his Amazon stake last summer to ex-wife, MacKenzie Bezos, according to Forbes.
He is worth $143 billion as of May 9, and there's widespread speculation on social media that he could become a trillionaire in the next six years, thanks to estimates in an article by small-business advice startup Comparisun.
The report's authors ran numbers on 25 people, including Warren Buffett, the Berkshire Hathaway CEO dubbed "the oracle of Omaha," and Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook.
For Bezos to become a trillionaire, however, he'd have to amass a fortune nearly seven times the size of what he already has.
Bezos became the richest person in the world in July 2018 after his net worth surpassed $150 billion, which outpaced Microsoft founder Bill Gates for the first time. The Amazon founder lost his title as richest person in the world briefly in October 2019 after Amazon shares dropped 7 percent, which put him just second to Gates again, according to Forbes. Gates' net worth is $106 billion as of May 9.
Bezos founded the e-commerce retailer in 1994 in his Seattle garage and he is still the CEO of the company, which has had immense success during the novel coronavirus pandemic because people around the world have opted out of in-store shopping and turned to online retail, grocery shopping, and video streaming, all three of which Amazon offers through its website.
Jeff Bezos (Photo: Associated Press)
Eight billionaires have each gained more than $1 billion in additional wealth since the early months of the pandemic starting on Jan. 1, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, MacKenzie Bezos, Eric Yuan, Steve Ballmer, John Albert Sobrato, Joshua Harris and Rocco Commisso, according to a study by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think-tank.
The Forbes and Bloomberg reports that the study is based on, however, indicate that Harris has recently lost wealth
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Bezos has profited the most during the pandemic. The Amazon founder's wealth has increased more than $25 billion since Jan. 1 and $12 billion since Feb. 1, according to the study.
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