The fortune of Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, rose by $3.8 billion in the first week of 2017. (Photo: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg)
The new year has just begun, and Jeff Bezos’ net worth is already up almost $4 billion.
Coming off a difficult three-month stretch in which Amazon lost more than 10% of its value, the company’s stock is once again surging. Between Monday morning and Friday afternoon of this week, Amazon’s share price rose by nearly 4%, closing at $795.99 per share at the end of normal trading at 4 P.M. EST Friday.
For Bezos, who owns more than 80 million shares and whose personal fortune is almost entirely tied to the business, that increase has led to big personal gains. His net worth jumped $3.8 billion this week to $68.7 billion; on Friday alone his fortune rose by $1.3 billion thanks to a 2% bump in the company’s stock price. Bezos is currently the planet’s fourth-richest person—trailing only Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Amancio Ortega of Spain—according to FORBES’ real-time ranking of the world’s billionaires.
Amazon’s climbing stock can likely be attributed to a combination of factors. Notably, though, the company has received substantial attention this week for its popular Echo device and its accompanying virtual assistant, Alexa. At the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which began Friday, Alexa has been ubiquitous, leading various news outlets to state that Amazon has “[stolen] the show” and is “winning the [virtual assistant] arms race” against Google and Apple. The recognition is no small feat; CES is the world’s largest trade show, with more than 175,000 attendees.
The e-commerce giant has also made headlines of late for its foray into brick-and-mortar retailing, including a small chain of bookstores and a (presently largely promotional) convenience store concept called Amazon Go that will operate without human cashiers. The new ventures come at a particularly interesting time; industry titans like Macy’s, Sears and Kohl’s have been forced to close scores of outlets, unable to compete with online rivals.
No matter the cause, the company’s recent turnaround is certainly a welcome reversal for investors, who have watched its stock decline by roughly 10% since hitting an all-time high in early October. Bezos, who founded Amazon in 1996 soon after quitting his job at a New York hedge fund, is likely also relieved to return public attention to Amazon’s products after months of focus on his relationship with Donald Trump, with whom he has previously sparred on Twitter.
In December 2015, following a series of tweets in which Trump accused Amazon of operating as a “tax shelter,” Bezos cheekily proposed sending him to space aboard one of his Blue Origin rockets. Should the taunting resume, Bezos may wish to open a new line of attack: that, as of this week, he is worth more than eighteen times as much as the president-elect.
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