Amazon.com (AMZN) Stock Price, Quote, News & History | Benzinga

The Musk vs Bezos net worth race looks lopsided today, but lining the two founders up at the same age shows Jeff Bezos got rich first and Elon Musk pulled ahead much later. At 24, the two were on very different tracks. Musk co-founded Zip2, an online city guide and business directory, with his brother Kimbal in 1995. Bezos, at the same age in 1988, had a Wall Street job as a product manager at Bankers Trust. Musk's first big payday came at 27, when Compaq bought Zip2 for $307 million in early 1999 and his stake came to about $22 million. Bezos was still on a salary at that age, working at the hedge fund D. E. Shaw, which he joined in 1990. He left in 1994 to launch Amazon at 30. Musk's second exit came at 31, when eBay bought PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion and his share was worth roughly $176 million, money he put back into SpaceX and Tesla. Bezos crossed the billion-dollar mark first, with about $1.6 billion at 34 after Amazon's 1997 IPO. Musk didn't make the annual billionaires list until 2012, at 40, with an estimated $2 billion. Bezos had about $5.1 billion at that age. The gap flipped in a big way later in life. At 55 in 2019, Bezos was worth about $131 billion and ranked as the world's richest person. Musk turned 55 in June 2026, weeks after SpaceX's record $75 billion IPO on June 12. His fortune has hovered around $1 trillion since, while Bezos, now 62, sits in the high $300 billions after new private valuations for Blue Origin and Prometheus. For investors, both fortunes still ride mostly on stock. Tesla closed at $386.47 on Oct. 21, 2026, the day it reported third-quarter adjusted earnings of 48 cents a share on $28.05 billion in revenue. SpaceX closed at $159.31 that day, a day after Musk said both companies' boards had formed special committees to study a possible merger. Amazon closed at $262.37 on Oct. 21. Photo of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk via Shutterstock: lev radin and Frederic Legrand. $TSLA. $SPCX. $AMZN. #ElonMusk #JeffBezos #NetWorth 🌐 Find more market-moving insights at https://www.benzinga.com — your one-stop destination for the latest financial news, data, and expert analysis to stay ahead of the markets. 🖥️ Want the same tools the pros use—without the $10K Bloomberg terminal? Benzinga Edge gives you real-time portfolio alerts, weekly stock picks, and pro-grade research in one command center. 👉 https://bit.ly/4unSKiB ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 📲 Follow us on socials @benzinga 🔔 Subscribe To The Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Benzinga ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ⚠️ Disclaimer: Investing in financial markets carries risk, and there are no guaranteed returns. All information is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as financial advice. Always do your own research and speak with a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Only invest what you can afford to lose. Past performance does not guarantee future outcomes.