Following the lacklustre performance of retail giant Amazon in the third quarter, the company founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has lost the title as the world's richest man to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Bezos's fortunes fell about $7 billion in stock value after Amazon shares fell 7 per cent in after-hours trading on Thursday.
Bezos's worth came down to $103.9 billion, while Gates's fortunes are about $105.7 billion. Earlier, Bezos had ended Gates's 24-year run as the richest man in 2018 to become the first man on earth with a net worth of $160 billion.
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Amazon's net sales hit $70 billion in the third quarter, an increase of 24 per cent compared with $56.6 billion in the same period last year, but the e-commerce giant saw its net income decreasing to $2.1 billion compared with net income of $2.9 billion in third quarter 2018. Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said that the profit decline was mostly related to the global e-commerce business. The retail giant's Cloud arm Amazon Web Services (AWS) reported revenue of $9 billion and operating income of $2.26 billion, 71.6 per cent of Amazon's total operating profit.
But Jeff Bezos's net worth drop cannot be entirely attributed due to the decline in Amazon shares, according to Forbes. Bezos transferred a quarter of his Amazon stake to his ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos as part of their divorce settlement, which was finalized earlier this year. MacKenzie Bezos is worth $32.7 billion, and among the top twenty wealthiest people in the world.
