E-commerce giant Amazon, Inc. AMZN, which had a humble beginning as a bookstore, has grown by leaps and bounds, and on Wednesday, the company’s market capitalization crossed the covetous $2 trillion mark for the first time ever. This has served to push up the net worth of founder Jeff Bezos, who is currently the world’s second richest man.
What Happened: Bezos’ net worth is now at $216 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His wealth is only fractionally lower than Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who remains the richest person on the Earth. Meanwhile, Forbes’ real-time list of billionaires has Musk leading with a net worth of $220.6 billion compared to $210.6 billion for Bezos, who is placed second.
Amazon was founded by Bezos on July 5, 1994, in Bellevue, Washington and he took the company public on May 15, 1997. The billionaire remained the company’s CEO until July 2021 before handing over the reins to his predecessor Andy Jassy. Bezos, who now splits his time between his charities and his space venture, currently serves as the executive chairman of Amazon.
A Form 4 filed with the SEC by Amazon in late May showed that Bezos owned 936,675,279 Amazon shares, giving him a little over 9% stake in the company. At Wednesday’s closing price of $193.61, Bezos’ Amazon stake is worth $181.35 billion.
The billionaire also owns the Washington Post and space company Blue Origin, which is up against Musk’s SpaceX company. The rest of the valuation ascribed to him by Bloomberg and Forbes may have to do with his other businesses. Amazon, meanwhile, has multiple businesses in its fold, including the core e-commerce business, AWS, brick-and-mortar grocery chain Whole Foods, Twitch, Zoox, Zappos, Audible, IMDb, etc.
See Also: Everything You Need to Know About Amazon Stock
Will Bezos Overtake Musk? Amazon is currently the fifth most valuable global company. It’s likely that Bezos soon emerge on top to be the world’s richest man. Amazon’s AWS is the leader in cloud computing and the company’s exposure to the hot-and-happening artificial intelligence technology has expanded its market opportunity.
Amazon’s second-quarter results are tentatively expected in early August. Analysts, on average, expect the company to report quarter earnings of $1.02 per share, up from $0.65 per share a year ago. Revenue is expected to climb 10.5% year-over-year to $148.47 billion. If the company outperforms expectations and provides a healthy outlook, the rally could continue in the second half of the year, a seasonally strong period for the market. So far this year, the stock has rallied over 27%, riding on the tech rally.
Musk’s fortunes, tied to his flagship Tesla electric-vehicle venture, could see a further dent as the company faces headwinds that could weigh down on the fundamentals. Demand for its vehicle has tapered off and margins continue to be depressed. Tesla is now looking to its ancillary businesses such as energy and full self-driving tech to provide the offsetting impact.
Tesla has a key catalyst coming up next week in the form of its second-quarter deliveries report. Analysts are downbeat about the numbers and potentially missing the lowered bar could trigger another round of sell-off in Tesla shares. This could in turn trim the wealth of CEO Musk.
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