After Two Weeks At No. 2, Jeff Bezos Is Once Again The Richest Person In The World

Two weeks after losing the title of the richest person in the world to LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos reclaimed the No. 1 spot on Thursday. Amazon shares closed more than 2% higher, boosting Bezos’ net worth by $3.5 billion, while shares in Arnault’s luxury conglomerate LVMH slumped by nearly 1%, slashing $1.4 billion from his fortune.

Bezos’ net worth now stands at $193.5 billion, Forbes estimates, compared to Arnault’s $192.9 billion. It’s been a rollercoaster few weeks for the two titans, who have been trading the top spot back and forth. On May 24 and 25, Arnault briefly passed Bezos before the markets opened in New York and Amazon shares rose, giving the Amazon founder the upper hand. Then, on May 27, Anault took the lead and held it for two weeks. Earlier this year, Bezos was locked in a two-week-fight for the top spot with a different mogul: Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk.

Most of Bezos’ net worth is tied up in his Amazon shares—he owns about 10% of the e-commerce giant—in addition to an estimated $19 billion worth of cash and investments, $500 million in real estate, plus aerospace company Blue Origin and the Washington Post. On Monday, Bezos announced that he would be onboard Blue Origin’s first crewed space flight on July 20, accompanied by his younger brother Mark and a third seat reserved for the winner of an online auction scheduled to end on June 22.

As the richest person on Earth—and soon one of the few billionaires to ever be in space—Bezos has seen enormous gains in his personal wealth over the past two years. Since the depths of the Covid-induced market crash in March 2020, Bezos has gotten $80.5 billion richer. Arnault has gained a staggering $116.9 billion over that time period, while Musk has added $128.7 billion to his fortune. Bezos briefly reached a record net worth of $200 billion twice in the past year, first in August 2020 and then again in late April.

While his wealth soared by $99 billion between 2014 and 2018, a report published by ProPublica on Tuesday revealed that Bezos only paid $930 million in federal taxes on income of $4.33 billion over the same period. ProPublica received years of tax returns for thousands of America’s wealthiest people, including Musk, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffett. Because the vast majority of Bezos’ wealth is tied up in Amazon shares—he only takes an annual salary of $81,840 as CEO of Amazon, a position he plans to give up in the third quarter of the year—he, and other billionaires in a similar position, can often pay very little in income taxes. According to ProPublica, Bezos paid no income tax in 2007 and 2011, offsetting his earnings with various deductions and losses on other investments, while Musk managed the same feat in 2018.