Jeff Bezos is once again the world’s richest person after losing the title to Elon Musk more than three years ago. As of today (March 5), the Amazon (AMZN) founder boasts a net worth of $200 billion, surpassing Elon Musk’s $198 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Bezos’s return to the top of the rich list is not so much a result of a swift gain in personal wealth, but has to do with Musk’s dramatic loss over the past few days. On Monday alone, Musk lost $17.6 billion in paper wealth after Tesla (TSLA)’s stock price fell nearly 8 percent.
The Tesla CEO has seen his fortune shrink by $31 billion this year as his electric carmaker’s market value plunged by 25 percent. Meanwhile, Bezos’s Amazon’s share price has gained more than 16 percent, adding $23 billion to Bezos’s net worth. The tech mogul has also been cashing out billions worth of Amazon shares at record-high prices recently for mysterious reasons. In recent years, Bezos has been moving about $1 billion a year from his Amazon equity ownership to fund his space company, Blue Origin. Bezos owned just shy of 10 percent of Amazon at the end of 2023, according to the company’s most recent proxy filing with the SEC.
When Tesla stock was trading at record-high levels in 2021, Musk was the world’s richest person by a wide margin, with his net worth reaching $338 million in November 2021. However, as Tesla’s stock price (and EV stocks in general) continues to fall this year, he is now on the verge of falling off the second place on Bloomberg’s ranking as he is only $1 billion richer than the next in line, Bernard Arnault, the chairman of French luxury conglomerate LVMH. Musk, Arnault and Bezos have traded places in recent years atop Bloomberg’s rich list.
Bezos was previously the world’s richest person for four years, from 2017 (overtaking Bill Gates) to 2021. Bezos stepped down as Amazon CEO in 2021 but remained as the company’s board chairman. Since then, he has spent more time running Blue Origin and expanding his philanthropic efforts. He has also been seen frequently with his fiancé, Lauren Sanchez, at social events.
