The Amazon founder and CEO looks like the biggest winner to emerge from a post-election rally that swept markets on Wednesday.
(Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
Jeff Bezos looks like the biggest winner to emerge from a post-election rally that swept markets on Wednesday.
Shares of Amazon shot up nearly 7%, adding $8.9 billion to Bezos’ fortune in a matter of a day. The Amazon founder and CEO is now worth $144.7 billion, according to Forbes Real Time Rankings. He remains the richest man in the world by far, followed by Bill Gates ($97.1 billion) and Warren Buffett ($90.9 billion).
Stocks surged across the board on Wednesday following the U. S. midterm elections, in which the Republicans kept control of the Senate and the Democrats took the House of Representatives. Investors, who hate the uncertainty such as an election can bring, sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average up more than 500 points.
Unlike many of his fellow billionaires, Bezos has largely refrained from making big political donations. However, this year, he donated $10 million to a bipartisan group to help get more veterans into Congress. The group, called With Honor, helped elect at least 17 veterans, according to a statement it put out on Wednesday morning.
Bezos, who owns 16% of the e-commerce juggernaut, often sees large swings in his net worth on a day-to-day basis. In October, his fortune dropped by some $19 billion in two short days. However, his wealth has generally continued to trend in one direction in the past year: up. Bezos’ net worth has shot up sharply from a year ago, when it sat at around $80 billion, and he is the first person on the planet to be worth more than $100 million.
Amazon has been working on selecting a location for its highly-anticipated second headquarters and the Wall Street Journal reported this week that the company is in final-stage discussions with several cities: Long Island City in New York, Crystal City in Virginia and Dallas. The current plan is to select two cities, each of which would be the site for 25,000 new jobs, according to the Journal.
I am part of Forbes’ wealth team, where I write about some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. I previously covered markets, investing and financial technology at Forbes. My reporting has taken me to the Seminole Tribe in Florida to sit down with the father of…
