Jeff Bezos’ Fortune Tops $120 billion as Amazon Shares Surge After Hours
Amazon CEO saw his wealth grow by $17.4 billion in January alone.
Jeff Bezos got a little bit richer Thursday after Amazon.com Inc. shares soared in after-hours trading, sending his personal fortune above $120 billion.
After tumbling during the regular session (and losing Bezos almost $5 billion), Amazon shares AMZN jumped 6.2% in late trading after reporting fourth-quarter profit and revenue that far exceeded analysts’ expectations.
If the gain holds when trading begins Friday, the Amazon founder and CEO will have made about $6.5 billion overnight, pushing his total wealth to about $123 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
This year has already been good to Bezos, who made $17.4 billion in January alone.
Bezos is ranked as the world’s richest man, surpassing Microsoft Corp. MSFT co-founder Bill Gates for the first time last summer. At the end of Thursday trading, Bezos had about a $21 billion lead on Gates, who is in second place.
Before Thursday’s post-earnings gains, Amazon’s shares were already up about 19% this year, compared with the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s DJIA 6% gain in 2018.
Article originally published by Mike Murphy at marketwatch.com