World’s richest person Jeff Bezos did not cease to mint money even amid coronavirus, with the multi-billionaire adding nearly $40 billion to his fortunes during the lockdown. The Amazon founder now has a total net worth of $155 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, making him a part of one of the world’s elitist clubs. A large chunk of Jeff Bezos’ wealth comes from Amazon’s soaring share price. While companies struggled to make ends meet, Amazon had a stellar performance in the stock market. In fact, Amazon share price hovered over $2,000-mark throughout the pandemic. Amazon stock was trading at $2,572, up 1.09% from the previous close at the time of publishing. Meanwhile, the closest competitor to Jeff Bezos is Microsoft-founder Bill Gates, with a total net worth of $111 billion.
The company also reported a major hike in demand in its first quarter earnings call as the world grappled with the coronavirus pandemic. With growing demand, the e-tailer went on a recruitment spree to tackle additional inflow of orders. The same also took place in India with the company posting job offers for about 50,000 temporary workers for various positions. “We’re opening close to 50,000 seasonal roles across our operations network to meet the surge in demand and to provide critical service in this difficult time. We’re committed to creating as many job opportunities while providing a safe working environment,” Amit Agarwal, Amazon India Head, said in late-May.
This is not the first time that Amazon chief has reached the $150 billion wealth mark. He had first attained it in July 2018.
Meanwhile, companies across the world are struggling to stay afloat as businesses have been impacted badly due to coronavirus pandemic. The situation is dire for the aviation, travel and tourism sector especially which almost saw negligible revenues for almost two months as various governments imposed restrictions on travel.
