At market close on Tuesday, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos had a net worth of $197.8 billion.
That’s according to Forbes, which reported yesterday that the figure was the highest in nearly 40 years of tracking the fortunes of billionaires. The surge in Bezos’ wealth came in conjunction with the S&P 500’s record close at 3,389.78, which surpassed its prior record of 3,386.15 in mid-February before the COVID-19 outbreak significantly impacted the United States. Amazon’s stock also grew 4.1% to end the day with a $1.66 trillion market capitalization.
Just a few weeks ago, the tech magnate — who famously founded the e-commerce giant in a garage in Seattle in 1994 — sold one million of his company’s shares. They were worth roughly $3.1 billion, priced between $3,102.85 and $3,183.26 a piece, at the time of sale.
Early this year, Bezos dropped about $4.1 billion worth of Amazon’s stock. The latest sell-off — part of a “prearranged 10b5-1 trading plan” as declared in the filings — brings his total cash-out this year to more than $7.2 billion. Comparatively, he sold approximately $2.8 billion worth of the online retailer’s shares last year.
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The billionaire previously explained that he was offloading $1 billion of Amazon’s stock a year to fund Blue Origin, the privately-held aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services firm that he founded two decades ago. He still owns upwards of 54 million shares in the company, which translates to approximately $170 billion in stock.
Bezos also bought The Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million and makes personal investments through his venture capital fund, Bezos Expeditions. As an early investor in Google, Airbnb and Business Insider, he boasts a substantial investment portfolio that spans industries from media services and health care to travel and real estate.
In May, a study from content platform Comparisun found that Bezos, who is the world’s wealthiest man, has seen his net worth grow by an average of 34% annually over the past five years. The report suggested that his net worth could top $1 trillion by 2026, which would make him the first person to ever hit that milestone.
Correction: The original version of this story reported that Bezos sold one billion of Amazon’s shares a few weeks ago. It was one million.
