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Jeff Bezos Surpasses Bill Gates as World's Richest Person (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the new-king dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A surge in Amazon shares Thursday morning in advance of the online retailer's earnings report has propelled founder Jeff Bezos past Bill Gates as the world's richest person. Shares of the online retailer rose 1.3 percent to $1,065.92 at 10:10 a.m. in New York, giving Bezos a net worth of $90.9 billion, versus $90.7 billion for Gates. If that holds through the 4 p.m. close, Bezos, 53, will leapfrog Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Gates, 61, has held the top spot since May 2013.

4 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Billionnaires by pr0t0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can't help but wonder what it's like to have that kind of wealth. Money in general, and maybe the concept of value must nearly be meaningless for most expenditures, at least until the amounts reach some ridiculous level like 10's or 100's of millions. Maybe all that's left is not about how much you have as much as it is how much you kept from someone else getting...just for bragging rights.

    $90+ Billion at only 53 is pretty astonishing. Then I thought, "Wait, what's Mark Zuckerberg's age and net worth?" Zuck is 33 and worth about $69 Billion. Then I wondered how today's billionaires compare to the dynastic US families of old.

    John Rockefeller had an estimated net worth of $336 in 2010 dollars
    Andrew Carnegie - $310 Billion
    Henry Ford - $190 Billion

    Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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    I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
  2. Re:Nobody should have that much money. by dogvomit · · Score: 4, Informative

    You (and many other sibling posters) are fighting a straw man. The OP didn't suggest taking the wealth away from Bezos. Not at all; let him enjoy the crap out of it. The proposal was to take more wealth from estates. That means the guy who earned it is dead. And man, he just cannot enjoy a dime of it after he's dead. It is the absolutely ultimate in fair tax, since it has absolutely zero impact on the person whose money it used to be.

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    Happy happy oh my friend

  3. World's KNOWN Richest Person by schwit1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    What is the financial wealth of Vladimir Putin or the owners of Saudi Aramco?

  4. Re:Raise Your Hand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Billionaires most certainly do (or can) hold billions in cash -- in the form of treasury bills, not checking accounts. The reason is the limit of $250,000 on FDIC insurance, which is useless for someone who needs to hold billions in cash. Treasury securities are considered equally riskless (or better) in terms of getting your money back, but without the limit. Treasury bills are cash for the big dogs, including pension funds, mutual funds, banks, foreign governments, and other institutional investors. They provide a form of liquid cash that scales into the billions.