Jeff Bezos, 58, is an American businessman, entrepreneur, philanthropist, media mogul and citizen astronaut who is the mastermind and former CEO/Chairman of retail juggernaut Amazon.
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Bezos currently has a net worth of $184.5 billion, according to Forbes’ Realtime Billionaires list.
Jeff Bezos’ Wealth Over the Years
Bezos has been a billionaire since 1999 – the year after Amazon went public – and he was the richest person in the world from 2017, when he overtook Bill Gates, until 2020.
In early January 2021, Bezos was overtaken by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk as the richest person on the list, and the two have since traded places from time to time. As of April 7, Bezos is the second richest person on the planet, after Musk.
At his peak, Bezos’ net worth was $200 billion. If he hadn’t had to share his assets with ex-wife MacKenzie, his net worth would have topped $250 billion, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Early life and career of Jeff Bezos
Bezos was born Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen to Jacklyn and Ted Jorgensen on January 12, 1964 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His parents divorced when he was very young and his mother married Miguel Bezos. Miguel adopted the boy, who later took the surname Bezos. Jeff grew up in Houston and had a keen interest in science. As he was about to enter high school, his family moved to Miami. He was an excellent student and was the valedictorian.
He fell in love with computer science while at Princeton University and graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1986.
After graduating, he had many great opportunities to choose from, but he chose to work for Fitel, a fintech company. He migrated to banking and got a job at hedge fund DE Shaw & Co. By the time he left the company four years later, he had risen to the position of senior vice president.
It was at DE Shaw & Co. that Bezos met his future wife and got the idea to transition to using the World Wide Web for his next business venture – an online bookstore he named Amazon.
To learn: How Much Is Amazon’s Net Worth?
Amazon makes Bezos a billionaire
On July 16, 1995, Seattle-based Amazon opened its virtual doors and began selling books online. Bezos himself helped pack the orders and deliver the boxes to the post office for shipping.
After growing from its beginnings as a book seller, Amazon has expanded to offer a multitude of products and services to customers around the world, which has helped it exceed $100 billion in annual sales. in a record time. Today, the company holds a valuation of approximately $1.6 trillion.
As Amazon shares rose, Bezos’ net worth also rose. The stock price closed at $3,175.12 on April 7.
Bezos owns 49.9 million Amazon shares, according to Yahoo Finance, which represents about 10% of the shares outstanding. He gave his ex-wife 19.8 million shares as part of their divorce settlement. Additionally, it has cashed in hundreds of thousands of shares over the past year and has offered nearly 5,000 shares so far in 2022.
Ultimately, Bezos amassed incredible wealth — and significant controversy over how much he pays workers and donates to charity — while using Amazon to disrupt virtually every consumer industry.
Jeff Bezos’ other commercial projects
Bezos launched his next passion project, Blue Origin, a company focused on manned spaceflight, in 2000.
In 2013, Bezos became one of the biggest players in the news industry after buying The Washington Post for $250 million.
In March 2017, Bezos bought Dubai-based online retailer Souq.com for $580 million, CNBC reported. This gave him the opportunity to expand Amazon into the Middle East.
In 2017, Bezos also bought grocery store Whole Foods for $13.7 billion, paving the way for Amazon to revitalize its food delivery service, Amazon Fresh.
Bezos also has significant investments in businesses other than his own. He owns at least $1 billion worth of stock in Google’s parent company Alphabet – he was an investor before the IPO, Celebrity Net Worth reported. He also invests in a number of companies, including Arrived Homes, Airbnb, Twitter and Uber, through his personal venture capital firm Bezos Expeditions.
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Jeff Bezos retires as CEO of Amazon
Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon – the company he founded that made him a global figure – on July 5, 2021. He chose this day for sentimental reasons. It was, after all, the 27th anniversary of the day the company was incorporated in 1994.
Since retiring as CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos has spent time sending rockets into space, including ships containing not only the iconic billionaire himself, but also celebrities. His company, Blue Origin, previously sent William Shatner, the legendary Captain Kirk, as well as “Good Morning America” host Michael Strahan, into orbit.
Jeff Bezos steps up his charitable giving
Jeff Bezos hasn’t always been considered the most generous billionaire, as he donated less than others, like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, to charities and causes. Bezos also refrained from participating in The Giving Pledge. Ex-wife MacKenzie Scott has signed up to the initiative, in which the world’s wealthiest people pledge to donate half of their wealth, either throughout their lives or after they die . Gates, Buffett and about 230 others have signed The Giving Pledge.
However, in 2020, Jeff Bezos made the largest charitable donation of the year, donating $10 billion to launch the Bezos Earth Fund, an organization that supports nonprofits fighting climate change. Bezos also donated $100 million to the Feeding America COVID-19 Response Fund.
Read: Nearly 40% of America’s richest billionaires donate relatively nothing to charity
The personal life of Jeff Bezos
While working at DE Shaw, Bezos met aspiring novelist MacKenzie Tuttle. The couple married in 1993 and share four children. They divorced in 2019 and it was reported that the split was amicable.
The couple purchased an estate in Seattle’s Medina neighborhood in 1998. It consisted of two homes totaling nearly 29,000 square feet. Bezos purchased the neighboring property, which consisted of five acres and a 24,000 square foot home, in 2010. The compound would be Bezos’ primary residence.
Jeff Bezos expands his real estate portfolio
Bezos added a Texas ranch to his portfolio in 2004. Located near Van Horn, the property serves as a base of operations for Blue Origin, according to Architectural Digest.
Bezos owns estates in Beverly Hills, California worth more than $200 million. It has adjoining mansions purchased in 2007 for $24.45 million and in 2017 for $12.9 million, according to Architectural Digest. In 2020, he paid $165 million for a historic mansion previously owned by David Geffen.
His portfolio also includes a number of properties in Manhattan. Bezos added four Manhattan apartments in 2019 and 2020 to the two he already owned. The most recent acquisitions include a 10,000 square foot penthouse overlooking Madison Square Park.
He also owns at least two properties in Washington, DC, purchased in 2016 and 2020 for $23 million and $5 million, respectively.
Bezos paid $78 million for a 14-acre resort in Hawaii last year, Architectural Digest reported, bringing the total value of his real estate portfolio to at least $578 million.
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The luxury toys of Jeff Bezos
In addition to his impressive real estate portfolio, Bezos owns private jets — including two Gulfstream planes — for his personal travel needs. His limited liability company, Poplar Glen, paid $5.5 million for a hangar at Seattle’s Boeing Field to store its jets in 2015.
Despite his enormous wealth, Bezos would not be among the ten richest people of all time, Celebrity Net Worth reported. In fact, at his highest net worth of $200 billion, his wealth was only the 11th highest ever amassed by a single individual after adjusting for inflation.
Jeff Bezos may not be the richest person of all time, or even the richest right now, but that could change at any time.
Jennifer Taylor and Jami Farkas contributed reporting for this article.
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