WEALTH RANKINGS
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is world’s richest person in modern history
New York — Jeff Bezos is the richest person in modern history. The Amazon.com founder’s net worth broke $150bn in New York on Monday morning, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That is about $55bn more than Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, the world’s second-richest person. Bezos, 54, has now topped Gates in inflation-adjusted terms. The $100bn mark that Gates hit briefly in 1999 at the height of the dotcom boom would be worth about $149bn now. That makes the Amazon CE richer than anyone else on earth since at least 1982, when Forbes published its inaugural wealth ranking. Bezos crossed the threshold just as Amazon prepares to kick off its 36-hour summer sales event, Prime Day. The company’s share price was $1,825.73 in late-morning trading in New York, extending its 2018 gain to 56% and giving Bezos a $150.8bn fortune. His net worth has soared by $52bn in 2018, which is more than the entire fortune of Mukesh Ambani, the newly crowned richest person in Asia. It also puts ...
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