Bill Gates can lose his position as the world’s wealthiest man as he is closely followed by founder and CEO of Amazon.com Jeff Bezos. The surge in the Bezos’ fortune was triggered by a sharp jump in the Amazon shares as the company announced higher earnings. The shares added 1.3 percent climbing to $1,065.92. As a result, Bezos’ wealth amounted to $90.9 billion. If nothing changes, the Amazon founder will beat Gates’ with the latter’s $90.7 billion fortune.
Bill Gates has been holding the first place since May 2013. But nothing lasts forever. Even if the Amazon shares start slumping in price, Jeff Bezos still has strong chances to grab the first place for a long time. "Amazon Prime is why so much physical retail is going away," said Michael Pachter, a Wedbush Securities Inc. analyst. "Anyone who joins Prime shops in retail stores 10 percent less, and that number will keep accelerating as Amazon adds more inventory." Besides, other Amazon branches also show high profits. In particular, Amazon Web Services that provides cloud computing platforms has become one of the leaders in the sphere and competes with Microsoft itself.
In early 2017, Bezos was among the top four in the list of the world’s richest people. Since then, he has overcome Inditex founder Amancio Ortega and Berkshire Hathaway President Warren Buffett. Now the Amazon founder is up to replace Bill Gates in the list.
