 "Amazon's Jeff Bezos adds $13 bn to his fortune in 15 mins; stock rises")
Shares of his Amazon.com surged 12 per cent to $2,100 in extended trading late on Thursday in New York, after the largest US e-commerce company reported fourth-quarter results that smashed Wall Street estimates.
Bezos, already the world’s richest person, added $13.2 billion to his fortune in 15 minutes. At the current price, his net worth would be about $129.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Bezos, 56, owns about 12 per cent of Amazon’s outstanding stock, making up the bulk of his fortune. His ownership of closely held Blue Origin accounts for about $6.2 billion. The late surge on Thursday added more than $90 billion to Amazon’s market value, pushing it above $1 trillion.
His ex-wife, MacKenzie Bezos, 49, also had reason to celebrate, as she owns about 4 per cent of the Seattle-based retailer. She started the day as the world’s 24th-richest person, with a $37.1 billion fortune.
Bezos wasn’t the only tech titan with dramatic changes to their net worth this week. Elon Musk’s fortune swelled by $2.3 billion in an hour on Wednesday after shares of Tesla rose in extended trading on better-than-expected results. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer also saw huge gains after Microsoft Corp. reported results. Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune tumbled $4 billion as Facebook shares slid on its slowest-ever quarterly sales growth.
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