Jeff Bezos' Wealth Now The Highest Ever Recorded In Forbes' History

Earlier this week, Amazon.com's founder and CEO Jeff Bezos set a new record when his net worth jumped by $13 billion in one day to $197.8 billion. Forbes.com said that it is the highest ever fortune recorded by the magazine in nearly four decades of its tracking billionaires.

The e-commerce giant's shares continued to rise this week as NASDAQ hit another record high after investors placed their bets on tech giants, including Apple and Microsoft, being able to help the US come out of its economic crisis.

A rise in stock prices has caused the wealth gap between Bezos, who owns 11.1 percent stake in Amazon, and Bill Gates, the second richest person in the world, to grow as wide as $83.8 billion amid the pandemic. The difference between their net worths is close to Elon Musk's net worth ($85.6 billion). Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla, the American electric vehicle and clean energy company, recently became the fourth richest person in the world after shares of his company hit a new record high.

Bezos wealth has been rising due to gains in stock prices, even as he continued to sell some of his shares in Amazon. The company's filings documented with the US Securities Exchange Commission show that Bezos sold $1.7 billion worth of Amazon stock in February 2020. He also gave 2,941 shares on 14 August (worth $9.3 million) to an undisclosed non-profit.