$211 billion is now the new record for a single person’s net worth. Bezos managed to capture the distinction when Amazon stock rose 4.7% during yesterday’s trading.
During the same day, the Pentagon announced that they are canceling a $10 billion cloud computing contract with Amazon’s rival Microsoft. This means that Amazon is now back in the running for the lucrative military contract. As it turns out, the Defense Department indicated that they will split the work between Microsoft and Amazon.
The Pentagon previously awarded the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Cloud (JEDI) project in late 2019 to Microsoft under then-president Donald Trump.
However, Amazon, a rival bidder, filed a lawsuit challenging the bidding results. Back then, the company insisted that the decision to award the bid to Microsoft was full of errors and that the Pentagon might have received “improper pressure” from President Trump.
Amazon pointed to a 2019 book that told an account of Trump directing the military to “screw Amazon” out of the cloud computing contract. At the time, Trump was a fierce critic of Bezos and Amazon and often called them out on social media.
Jeff Bezos And Elon Musk
Prior to Bezos’ record of $211 billion, Tesla CEO Elon Musk briefly recorded a net worth of $210 billion while Tesla stock posted all-time highs. Since then, the two kept trading spots depending on which stock sold higher.
By March, Bezos began pulling away as Amazon stock rose 20% while Tesla faded a bit. The latest Amazon stock increase added $8.4 billion to Bezos’ net worth, pushing him to become the world’s first $211 billion men.
Musk is comfortably in second place with a $180 billion net worth, while Louis Vuitton and Hennesy boss Bernard Arnault are third at $168.5 billion.
Ironically, Bezos became much wealthier at the time he stepped down as CEO of Amazon, the online bookstore he started in a garage 27 years ago. He still owns around 11% of the company’s stock, which is now worth $3,696.58 per share.
Prior to giving up his day-to-day duties, Bezos transformed his online bookshop into the world’s biggest online retailer. In addition, he added cloud computing services and health care. Now, Amazon is also looking into media and entertainment with their acquisition of MGM studios.
Meanwhile, Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie Scott also received a windfall. The 15th-richest person in the world saw her wealth increase by $2.9 billion due to the Amazon stock climb. This means that she managed to get the $2.7 billion she gave away to charities and got some pocket change as well.
Watch the July 8 episode of Computer America reporting that billionaire Jeff Bezos’ net worth is now $211 billion:
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