Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, is richer than ever before: a year after his divorce, which was the most expensive divorce in history, he breaks his own record again.
All the way back after divorce
Jeff Bezos once again breaks the ultimate prosperity record: the strong man behind Amazon is worth 171.6 billion dollars (151.5 billion euros). Not only does he remain the leader of the list of richest people in the world according to Bloomberg, he also catches up with himself after a temporary dip due to his wife’s divorce last year. Bezos would now be worth more than the gross national product of Hungary or Algeria, according to The Sunday Times.
In September 2018, his fortune was valued at 167.7 billion dollars, but a few months later, he transferred about a quarter of their combined Amazon shares to his then-wife in what was to become the most expensive divorce in history. Mackenzie Bezos, who married the entrepreneur a year before he founded Amazon, thus gained 4% of the company’s shares and became 38 billion dollars richer. She is now the second richest woman in the world after Françoise Bettencourt, the granddaughter of the founder of L’Oréal.
Amazon’s share price peaks
MacKenzie Bezos announced last March that she had signed the Giving Pledge, a philanthropic pledge coined by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to encourage the world’s richest people to give half their wealth away to charity during their lifetime. Jeff Bezos did not sign the promise, but tweeted that he was proud of his ex-wife. Recently, Bezos donated 2 billion dollars to the Bezos Day One Fund to tackle homelessness and improve educational opportunities for disadvantaged children.
Since Jeff Bezos owns some 57 million shares of Amazon (representing 12% of the company), his wealth depends heavily on the online retailer’s share price. This price is currently peaking thanks to the increased demand for e-commerce since the coronapandemic and the company’s efforts to continue to operate during the health crisis. Although there is also a lot of criticism from the trade unions: in the US as well as in France and Germany, workers striked because they feel that the safety measures are inadequate.
