Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest person to have ever existed, kind of.
Two separate net worth trackers place Jeff Bezos as being worth $105.1 billion and $104.4 billion. This has his net worth surpassing the highest ever reached by Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).
A large part of Jeff Bezoss wealth comes from his 78.9 million shares in Amazon. The CEO also has stakes in The Washington Post and space travel company Blue Origin. While his wealth is nothing to dismiss, it actually doesn’t surpass Bill Gates’ highest wealth if we take into account for inflation. The Microsoft founder had a net worth of just over $100 billion back in 1999, which would be $148 billion today.
Even if we don’t take into account for inflation, there are still a few other factors about Bill Gates that put a damper on Jeff Bezos’s net worth. This includes the charitable donations that Gates has made over the years, which have a value of $61.8 billion. At his current net worth of $91.9 billion, this would easily put Gates well above Bezos, reports CNNMoney.
The large value of Jeff Bezos’ AMZN stock is actually allowing him to pursue other adventures outside of the online retail company. This includes his Blue Origin efforts. The Amazon CEO revealed in 2017 that he sells $1 billion per year of AMZN stock to fund Blue Origin. Bezos hopes to use the company to offer space travel to commercial customers in the future.
AMZN stock was up slightly as of noon Tuesday.
As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
