Bezos has seen his wealth rise as he unloads Amazon stock, while the Tesla CEO's net worth has sunk along with his EV company's shares
Jeff Bezos has retaken the top spot in the never-ending battle for the title of world’s richest person. The Amazon $AMZN founder and executive chairman, who has been selling billions of dollars worth of Amazon stock in recent weeks, returned to No. 1 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Monday.
He’s worth $200 billion, according to Bloomberg, up a cool $23.4 billion so far in 2024. Elon Musk dropped down to No. 2 with a net worth of $198 billion. The Tesla $TSLA CEO has lost $31.3 billion this year as Tesla stock has plummeted more than 24% to start 2024. It’s Bezos’ first time atop the Bloomberg list since the fall of 2021, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Bezos, Musk, and Bernard Arnault, chairman of the luxury conglomerate LVMH, have long taken turns trading the title of world’s richest. And according to another ranking, Arnault still sits on top of the world. Forbes, which calculates estimated net worths differently than Bloomberg, still had Arnault and his family at No. 1 on its Real Time Billionaires List as of Monday, with $228.8 billion. Forbes ranks Musk second at $202.3 billion and Bezos third with $198.5 billion.
Musk’s net worth, which is tied to Tesla’s stock, has taken a big hit in recent weeks. The EV maker’s stock has plummeted in just the first two months of the year, at one point making it the worst performing company on the S&P 500. Tesla stock fell more than 7% on Monday before shedding another 2% on pre-market trading on Tuesday. That followed new data showing that sales by Tesla and other electric vehicle companies in China declined last month, burdened by weaker demand and rising competition in the world’s largest auto market.
And Musk’s wealth took another blow early this year when a judge voided his historic $56 billion executive compensation package, declaring it unfair to shareholders.
Bezos, meanwhile, sold a total of 50 million Amazon shares worth about $8.4 billion over the course of just nine trading days last month. Those sales were the first time Bezos sold Amazon stock since 2021. He could end up saving almost $600 million in taxes on his Amazon stock sales because of his recent move to Florida — a state with no capital gains tax.
Join 500,000+ readers who start their day with Quartz.
By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
