Some of the world’s richest people publicly congratulated Joe Biden’s historic presidential victory over the weekend, even though billionaire Donald Trump hasn’t yet admitted defeat.



One billionaire—hedge fund cowboy Bill Ackman, whose&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/william-ackman/?sh=3e214709298d">net worth</a>&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates at $2 billion—directly advised Trump to concede in a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/billackman/status/1325225698248839168?s=21" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweet</a>. “There comes a time in the battle when one should fold the tent. Instead focus on your accomplishments over the last four years,” Ackman wrote Saturday. “Concede graciously and call for unity from all who have supported you.”



Other billionaires congratulated Biden on his win, including Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist Bill Gates. “I look forward to working with the new administration and leaders on both sides in Congress on getting the surging pandemic under control,” Gates&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1325138315964682246?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;shortly after Biden was projected as the winner by the Associated Press on Saturday.&nbsp;



It’s a notable reaction from the third richest person in the world. As the coronavirus pandemic took hold, Gates, who’s currently worth $118 billion,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2020/04/Gates-Foundation-Expands-Commitment-to-COVID-19-Response-Calls-for-International-Collaboration" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pledged</a>&nbsp;$300 million from his charitable foundation for vaccine development and other efforts. He’s also criticized the U.S. response to date,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/09/20/bill-gates-us-needs-to-own-up-to-the-fact-that-we-didnt-do-a-good-job/?sh=12a76b653fb8">telling</a>&nbsp;Fox News in September that “we did a very poor job” and need to &#8220;own up to the fact.”



The world’s richest person, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, also chimed in on Instagram. “Unity, empathy, and decency are not characteristics of a bygone era,” the ecommerce executive, who we estimate is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/?sh=451ac1ea1b23">worth</a>&nbsp;$190 billion,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CHTZ-TyHqjN/?igshid=11uu42usw74ba" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote</a>&nbsp;as the caption to a photo of Biden and Harris high-fiving.



A few of Biden’s billionaire donors also cheered his win. Philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, whose net worth Forbes estimates at nearly $20 billion, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/10/19/at-least-67-billionaires-made-six-figure-donations-to-committees-supporting-joe-biden-in-last-3-months/?sh=5e3944951bd2">donated</a> $100,000 to his campaign. She celebrated Harris’ historic ascendency as the first woman and first Black American and Asian American person to become vice president in a Saturday tweet, describing the achievement as a “glass ceiling shattered once and for all.”



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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">We celebrate our democracy, our common humanity, and a glass ceiling shattered once and for all. <a href="https://t.co/IhvGLBcALd">pic.twitter.com/IhvGLBcALd</a>&mdash; Laurene Powell Jobs (@laurenepowell) <a href="https://twitter.com/laurenepowell/status/1325124457262850052?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2020</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Former venture capitalist-turned-media personality&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/chris-sacca/?sh=37a2ca44220a">Chris Sacca</a>, who with his wife Crystal Sacca donated $420,000 of their estimated $1.1 billion fortune to Biden, also applauded the election’s outcome. “Joe and Kamala bring science, innovation and an understanding of the climate opportunity back to the White House,”&nbsp; Sacca&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/sacca/status/1325226113119891456?s=21" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;Saturday, saying he gave that statement to a news organization owned by conservative media tycoon (and longtime Trump friend) Rupert Murdoch, but the news organization told Sacca they weren’t going to publish it. “I couldn’t be more bullish” about what Biden’s administration means for investors, he added.&nbsp;



“I want to congratulate @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris on a historic win,” Illinois governor and billionaire J.B. Pritzker&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/GovPritzker/status/1325113433487003657?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>, adding that he’s looking forward to working with their administration.&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;previously reported that Pritzker and his wife&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/10/19/at-least-67-billionaires-made-six-figure-donations-to-committees-supporting-joe-biden-in-last-3-months/?sh=5e3944951bd2">donated</a>&nbsp;$1.4 million to Biden’s campaign, and that his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jb-pritzker/?sh=b22443b38146">net worth</a>&nbsp;is estimated around $3.5 billion.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Entertainment billionaires Oprah Winfrey and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2020/09/01/from-poor-as-hell-to-billionaire-how-tyler-perry-changed-show-business-forever/?sh=6a25b7e234b5">Tyler Perry</a>&nbsp;also weighed in. Winfrey, who we&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/oprah-winfrey/?sh=8e46c155745f">estimate</a>&nbsp;is worth $2.6 billion, hailed Biden’s win as a “reset” for the “soul of America.” Perry, who&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates to be&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/tyler-perry/?sh=5707ea8e13dd">worth</a>&nbsp;$1 billion,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/tylerperry/status/1325165060008783880?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;Saturday that “change is here,” adding, “I’m sitting here in tears!”



Trump wasn’t the only billionaire running in 2020. Climate change activist Tom Steyer and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg also ran against Biden for the Democratic nomination. After dropping out, Steyer and his wife&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/10/19/at-least-67-billionaires-made-six-figure-donations-to-committees-supporting-joe-biden-in-last-3-months/?sh=5e3944951bd2">donated</a>&nbsp;$640,000 to Biden from their $1.4 billion&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/thomas-steyer/?sh=396bdad073f5">fortune</a>, while Bloomberg—who spent $1 billion on his own campaign—gave&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/denizcam/2020/10/31/the-top-5-richest-backers-of-joe-biden/?sh=126cecfa6413">$15 million</a>&nbsp;of his nearly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/michael-bloomberg/?sh=15ef5ad61417">$55 billion</a>&nbsp;fortune to various progressive organizations. Both men&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/TomSteyer/status/1325114359832473600?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">congratulated</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/MikeBloomberg/status/1325118275441881088?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Biden</a>&nbsp;on his win.



Virgin founder Richard Branson, who is British (and who we estimate is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/richard-branson/?sh=1a93afbd6ff5">worth</a> $4.6 billion) offered international best wishes to Biden as president-elect. “Now is the time to bring America together as a United States and start the healing,” Branson <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/richardbranson/status/1325163037607694338?s=20" target="_blank">tweeted</a>. “The world will be rooting for that.”



By Lisette Voytko, Forbes Staff

US-ECONOMICS-GATES

Here’s How Bill Gates And Other Billionaires Are Reacting To Biden’s Election Victory

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, announced Tuesday morning in an Instagram post that the first Bezos Academy — a free preschool for children coming from low-income families — will launch in October in a town to the south of Seattle.



“This classroom is just the beginning,” Bezos wrote, captioning a photo of a classroom bookshelf, lined with titles such as Pita &amp; Ralph’s Rotten Day and My Papi Has A Motorcycle. “The @bezosacademy opens its doors on Oct. 19th. This one in Des Moines, WA, is the first of many free preschools that we’ll be opening for underserved children.”



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https://www.instagram.com/p/CFcMd_RnQ_I/?igshid=k90rmxrvwczf
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The preschool will have a year-round curriculum, five days a week, for children 3-5 years old. According to the Bezos Day One website, the team selected to put the preschool in Des Moines, a town to the south of Seattle based on income levels, rates of participation in free and reduced-cost meal programs, gaps in access to license childcare providers, and buy-in from local businesses who will support the growth of the preschool. It will continue to use this kind of data set for choosing locations to other schools.



Bezos first announced his intention to build a network of preschools in November 2018, when he launched the $2 billion Bezos Day One Fund. The fund has two priorities: giving to nonprofits that are helping homeless families, and building a network of preschools. Since its launch, the fund has given around $100 million a year to a variety of homeless-focused nonprofits, the Amazon founder has remained relatively quiet about the schools initiative, until today.



The schools will be inspired by Montessori, a method of education where curriculums are more hands-on, collaborative, and change based on the individual student’s own interests. Bezos attended a Montessori school when he was 2 years old in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “You know, intuitively, I think it was probably a very formative experience for me to be able to go to those classes, in that environment, and be so stimulated at an early age,” Bezos told Montessori Life magazine in a 2000 interview. “I don’t actually know what the scientific research shows, but intuitively I have to imagine that it’s good for little kids.” In the same interview, Bezos recalled “tracing out letters on sandpaper” and “painting on a big easel.”



The network of preschools will operate under the parent nonprofit organization, also called Bezos Academy. The group is in the process of hiring for a position that will assess the success or failures of the preschool program.



By Angel Au-Yeung, Forbes Staff

Jeff Bezos’s India Visit Marked By Probe and Protests

Jeff Bezos Announces The First Bezos Academy, A Free Preschool For Students From Low-Income Families

Amazon, bolstered by boosted sales amid the coronavirus pandemic, is hiring another 100,000 people in the U.S. and Canada to stay on top of demand, the e-commerce giant <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://blog.aboutamazon.com/operations/creating-more-job-opportunities-in-operations" target="_blank">announced</a> on Monday.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



Full and part-time positions have opened up across 100 new operations sites opening this month, which include “fulfillment centers, delivery stations, sortation centers,” among other sites.



It comes as the company has already announced tens of thousands of jobs this year alone, with 100,000 in March and 75,000 in April, while earlier this month, Amazon opened up&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.aboutamazon.com/job-creation-and-investment/amazon-announces-career-day-2020" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">33,000 jobs</a>&nbsp;in its corporate and tech divisions.



The company’s vice president of global customer fulfillment, Alicia Boler Davis, added in an interview with&nbsp;<a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-workers/amazon-to-hire-100000-more-workers-in-its-latest-job-spree-this-year-idUKKBN2650SR" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Reuters</a>&nbsp;that the company will introduce automation in its new buildings, although the technology is designed to work with employees.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



As the coronavirus pandemic has seen everyday life ground to a standstill, Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has prospered from serving homebound shoppers with the last few months marking the best in its 26-year history. In July, Amazon posted record second-quarter earnings of $5.2 billion, with sales up 40% over last year to nearly $90 billion, although it saw a 13% fall in revenue from its physical stores. The company’s hiring spree over the past year reflects its need to keep up with the surge in demand from homebound shoppers. But the company and CEO Jeff Bezos have come under fire from existing and former employees, who allege the company failed to adequately protect warehouse workers from the health and economic risks of Covid-19.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



560,000. That’s how many people Amazon employs worldwide, according to the company’s<a href="https://www.aboutamazon.co.uk/working-at-amazon/our-people" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;blog</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos topped Forbes’ list of 400 richest Americans for the third year in a row, with a net worth of $183.8 billion as of Monday morning. Earlier this year, Bezos, who holds an 11.2% stake in Amazon, became the first person to surpass a net worth of more than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/08/26/worlds-richest-billionaire-jeff-bezos-first-200-billion/?utm_source=TWITTER&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_content=3629826204&amp;utm_campaign=sprinklrForbesMainTwitter#13b38a024db7">$200 billion</a>&nbsp;late last month.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://blog.aboutamazon.com/operations/creating-more-job-opportunities-in-operations" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creating more job opportunities in operations</a>&nbsp;(Amazon)



-By Isabel Togoh, Forbes Staff

Amazon Unveils Its First Smartphone

Amazon Is Hiring A Further 100,000 People To Keep Up With Pandemic-Induced Demand

THE CHANGING FORTUNES OF THE WORLD’S RICHEST



After briefly becoming the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hayleycuccinello/2020/08/31/elon-musk-100-billion-net-worth/#7d8e258880ed">fifth centibillionaire in the world</a> on Monday, August 31, Tesla CEO Elon Musk ended the week down $9.9 billion as tech companies — and their founders’ fortunes — took a hit.



While tech companies have largely been driving the stock market’s surge during the pandemic, heavyweights like Facebook and Amazon took a spill on Thursday and Friday during what some observers&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/bd5804ef-94d0-45b4-9c2b-8fb7996ec5f6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">are calling a correction</a>. The S&amp;P 500 was down 2.3% for the week, while the Dow Jones Industrial Index fell 1.8%. Tesla stock started to falter on Wednesday,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/02/teslas-largest-outside-shareholder-reduces-holding-citing-portfolio-restrictions.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">after news broke that</a>&nbsp;its largest outside shareholder, Scottish investment firm Ballie Gifford, reduced its stake in the company. The stock ended the week down 5.5%.&nbsp;



Even with the decline, Musk is four times wealthier than he was a year ago, with a net worth of $87.9 billion. He is currently the fifth richest person in the world, $5.5 billion ahead of Warren Buffett.



The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, hit a milestone last week when he became the first person tracked by Forbes with a fortune that exceeded $200 billion. With Amazon shares worth 3% less than a week ago at the market close on Friday, Bezos’ fortune dropped  $5.8 billion to $193.5 billion. His ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott (net worth: $62.4 billion), is $2 billion poorer this week.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="594" height="425" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/gettyimages-1148401100-594x594-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-46514" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/gettyimages-1148401100-594x594-1.jpg 594w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/gettyimages-1148401100-594x594-1-300x215.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px" /><figcaption>Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 6, 2019. (Photo by MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune fell $4 billion as Facebook shares dropped 3.7% in the past week. He’s been more vocal than ever before about political misinformation on the social media platform and announced steps to mitigate the problem. On Wednesday, he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, announced a&nbsp;<a href="https://gizmodo.com/zuckerberg-drops-300-million-to-support-u-s-elections-1844921516" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$300 million donation</a>&nbsp;to support voting infrastructure, such as protective equipment for poll workers and polling place rentals. On Thursday, he said that Facebook would&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2020/09/03/facebook-will-block-new-political-ads-in-the-week-leading-up-to-election-day/#30873f0b7950">block new political ads</a>&nbsp;during the week before Election Day, and flag posts in which a candidate tries to claim a premature victory.&nbsp;



Quicken Loans cofounder Dan Gilbert had a chaotic week as shares of the online mortgage lender’s parent company, Rocket Companies, soared midweek ahead of the company’s first earnings report since it went public in August. Although <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.thestreet.com/investing/rocket-rkt-earnings-mortgage-initial-public-offering" target="_blank">it reported strong profits</a>, the stock corrected itself and ended the week down more than 13%. As of Friday, September 4, Gilbert is worth $51 billion — $7.3 billion less than last week, but nearly eight times richer than he was a year ago.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



HERE ARE THE BILLIONAIRES WHOSE FORTUNES FELL THE MOST THIS WEEK.



The net worth change is from close of markets Friday, August 28, to Friday, September 4.



<h4 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading">1 | ELON MUSK</h4>



NET WORTH |&nbsp;$87.9 BILLION, DOWN $9.9 BILLION



COUNTRY |&nbsp;UNITED STATES



SOURCE OF WEALTH |&nbsp;TESLA



<h4 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading">2 | DAN GILBERT</h4>



NET WORTH |&nbsp;$51 BILLION, DOWN $7.3 BILLION



COUNTRY |&nbsp;UNITED STATES



SOURCE OF WEALTH | QUICKEN LOANS



<h4 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading">3 | JEFF BEZOS</h4>



NET WORTH |&nbsp;$193.5 BILLION, DOWN&nbsp;$5.8 BILLION



COUNTRY |&nbsp;UNITED STATES﻿



SOURCE OF WEALTH | AMAZON



<h4 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading">4 |  STEVE BALLMER</h4>



NET WORTH |&nbsp;$72.9 BILLION, DOWN $4.1 BILLION



COUNTRY |&nbsp;UNITED STATES



SOURCE OF WEALTH | MICROSOFT



<h4 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading">5 | MARK ZUCKERBERG</h4>



NET WORTH | &nbsp;$103.8 BILLION, DOWN $4 BILLION



COUNTRY |&nbsp;UNITED STATES



SOURCE OF WEALTH | FACEBOOK



<h4 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading">6 | LARRY ELLISON</h4>



NET WORTH |&nbsp;$74.2 BILLION, DOWN $2.7 BILLION



COUNTRY |&nbsp;UNITED STATES



SOURCE OF WEALTH | ORACLE



<h4 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading">7 | AMANCIO ORTEGA</h4>



NET WORTH |&nbsp;$65.3 BILLION, DOWN $2.5 BILLION



COUNTRY |&nbsp;SPAIN



SOURCE OF WEALTH | ZARA



<h4 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading">8 | MA HUATENG</h4>



NET WORTH |&nbsp;$57.5 BILLION, DOWN $2.3 BILLION



COUNTRY |&nbsp;CHINA



SOURCE OF WEALTH | TENCENT



<h4 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading">9 | LARRY PAGE</h4>



NET WORTH |&nbsp;$70.6 BILLION, DOWN $2.2 BILLION



COUNTRY |&nbsp;UNITED STATES



SOURCE OF WEALTH | GOOGLE



<h4 class="has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading">10 | SERGEY BRIN</h4>



NET WORTH |&nbsp;$68.7 BILLION, DOWN $2.1 BILLION



COUNTRY |&nbsp;UNITED STATES



SOURCE OF WEALTH | GOOGLE



-Ariel Shapiro, Forbes Staff

Key Speakers At The Satellite 2020 Conference

Elon Musk Down Nearly $10 Billion In One Week As Tech Stocks Plunge

The world&#8217;s richest person,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/?list=rtb/">Jeff Bezos</a>, is wealthier than he&#8217;s ever been. Early Wednesday he crossed a milestone previously unseen in the nearly four decades&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;has been tracking net worths: With Amazon stock edging up 2% as of Wednesday afternoon, Bezos&#8217; net worth is up by $4.9 billion, making the 56-year-old the world&#8217;s first-ever person to amass a $200 billion fortune.



As of 1:50 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, the Amazon founder and CEO is worth $204.6 billion—nearly $90 billion more than the world&#8217;s second-richest person,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/?list=rtb/">Bill Gates</a>, who&#8217;s currently worth $116.1 billion.&nbsp;



Even adjusting for inflation, Forbes believes Bezos&#8217; fortune is the largest ever amassed. The person to come closest is Gates, who was the world&#8217;s first-ever centibillionaire. Near the height of the dot-com bubble, when Microsoft reached its then-peak in 1999, Gates&#8217; net worth surpassed $100 billion, roughly $158 billion in today&#8217;s dollars.



Fueled by the change in consumer habits as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Amazon stock is up nearly 80% since the beginning of the year, and Bezos&#8217; net worth, which was roughly $115 billion on January 1, has skyrocketed in tandem. Bezos’ roughly 11% stake in Amazon makes up more than 90% of his fortune. He also owns the&nbsp;Washington Post, aerospace company Blue Origin and other private investments.



Bezos would be even richer had he not gone through the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2019/08/01/mackenzie-bezos-now-officially-worlds-third-richest-woman/">most expensive divorce</a>&nbsp;settlement in history last year. When he split from ex-wife,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/mackenzie-scott/?list=rtb/">MacKenzie Scott</a>, last July, he agreed to give her 25% of his Amazon stake, a chunk of stock now worth $63 billion. Even after giving away $1.7 billion in charitable gifts earlier this year, Scott is currently the world&#8217;s 14th-richest person and second-richest woman, behind L&#8217;Oréal heiress&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/francoise-bettencourt-meyers/">Françoise Bettencourt Meyers</a>.&nbsp;



Bezos isn’t alone among tech titans with fortunes surging to massive new heights. Facebook&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-zuckerberg/?list=rtb/">Mark Zuckerberg</a>&nbsp;ended Tuesday as a brand-new centibillionaire, worth $103.1 billion after adding $3.4 billion to his fortune in one day, on Facebook stock gains. That surge continued early Wednesday afternoon, with Zuckerberg up an astonishing $6 billion just on Wednesday as of publication time. He&#8217;s now worth $109.1 billion.



There are now more centibillionaires on the planet than ever. Joining Bezos, Gates and the newly crowned Zuckerberg is LVMH chair&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bernard-arnault/?list=rtb/">Bernard Arnault</a>, who first joined the 12-figure ranks last year. Though his net worth slipped to about $80 billion at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in March, Arnault reclaimed the centibillionaire title in May and today is worth about $115 billion. This makes him the third-richest person on earth–$90 billion poorer than Jeff Bezos.



Update 8/26/2020, 6:05 p.m.: A regulatory filing made public late Wednesday revealed that Bezos donated 7,548 Amazon shares–worth about $26 million–to an undisclosed nonprofit organization. At market close on Wednesday, Bezos was worth $205 billion.



-Jonathan Ponciano, Forbes Staff

Amazon CEO And Blue Origin Founder Jeff Bezos  Speaks At Air Force Association Air, Space And Cyber Conference

Jeff Bezos Becomes The First Person Ever Worth $200 Billion

Here are five big numbers that show Amazon <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/amazon" target="_blank">AMZN</a> <a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/amazon">-3.7%</a>’s explosive growth during the pandemic which has hurt much of the retail world.



$570 billion



That’s how much Amazon’s market capitalization has gained so far in 2020. At the start of the year, the e-commerce giant sported a valuation of around $920 billion. After the stock bounced back from the coronavirus market sell-off in March and hit new record highs, the company is now worth $1.49 trillion. That makes Amazon one of the largest companies in the world, trailing only Microsoft&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/microsoft" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MSFT</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/microsoft">-4.3%</a>, worth $1.54 trillion, and Apple&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/apple" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AAPL</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/apple">-4.6%</a>, worth $1.61 trillion.



63.3%



Amazon’s stock has increased by more than 60% this year and now trading at around $3,000 per share. It bottomed out at around $1,600 in mid-March as the stock market plunged amid widespread business shutdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic. The stock has since roared back from its March low, closing above $3,000 per share for the first time on July 6. There are several reasons to explain the stock’s “meteoric rise,” according to Morningstar&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/morningstar" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MORN</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/morningstar">+0.5%</a>&nbsp;analyst R. J. Hottovy. “Heightened Prime member engagement (especially for online grocery services)” and strong usage rates for its cloud business, Amazon Web Services (AWS). Morningstar assigns the stock a fair value estimate of $2,750 per share.



$178.5 billion



Bezos, who currently owns an 11.1% stake in Amazon, has seen his net worth surge by more than 50% so far in 2020. He is the world’s richest person: Forbes estimates his <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/?list=rtb/#384653071b23">net worth</a> at $178.5 billion, up from $114.7 billion at the end of 2019. The second richest person is Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, with a net worth of $113 billion.



$75 billion



That’s at least how much revenue analysts are expecting from Amazon when it reports second quarter earnings next week on July 30. But Morningstar says (as is the case with many big tech stocks today), the market has moved back to a “growth-over-profitability” mindset when it comes to Amazon. The company is expected to report at least $4 billion in coronavirus-related expenses, which could pressure the company’s operating profits, according to Hottovy. Since April, Amazon and Bezos have <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2020/07/08/jeff-bezos-net-worth-hits-all-time-high-of-more-than-180-billion/#2c2a2d3f24ff">faced backlash</a> over inadequate safety and working conditions amid the coronavirus which had led to worker protests. The company has since pledged to spend more money on revamping health and safety protocols in the workplace.



$3,800 per share



Analysts at investment firms Jefferies and Goldman <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/goldman-sachs-group" target="_blank">GS</a> <a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/goldman-sachs-group">-1.4%</a> Sachs have both raised their Amazon price targets to $3,800 per share. That’s the highest estimate on the Street. Both firms cited Amazon’s booming e-commerce business—including sustained online sales growth in North America—and large potential upside from its growth in its cloud segment, AWS. According to Goldman analysts, data from Mastercard <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/mastercard" target="_blank">MA</a> <a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/mastercard">-1.1%</a> indicates that Amazon’s e-commerce segment <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/amazon-stock-upside-street-high-price-target-goldman-sachs-tie-2020-7-1029410889#" target="_blank">grew by 93%</a> year-over-year in May.



 &#8211; <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/">Sergei Klebnikov</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/markets">Markets</a>

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5 Big Numbers That Show Amazon’s Explosive Growth During The Coronavirus Pandemic

It’s not just Amazon stock that has boosted the fortunes of its billionaire backer. Dramatic changes in the share prices of Tesla, Reliance and Microsoft have reshuffled the ranks of the top ten richest in the world since March.



 Between last Friday afternoon after markets closed and 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Jeff Bezos’ net worth fell by $8 billion. That’s a huge sum — the combined value of the NFL’s New England Patriots ($4.1 billion) and the New York Giants ($3.9 billion). But for Bezos, who’s worth about $181 billion, it was just a routine couple of days on the job —and a 4.4% decline in his fortune.



Since March 18, the date that Forbes used to calculate net worths for the 2020 World’s Billionaires list, and days after the President declared a national emergency due to the coronavirus, Amazon’s stock price has soared nearly 69%. As shoppers who sheltered at home during the pandemic turned to Amazon for ordering more purchases, its market cap reached a record $1.5 trillion, and Bezos’ fortune jumped $68 billion. Even with the slight downtick in the last two days, investors aren’t worried – mostly chalking it up to portfolio rebalancing, or momentum stocks retreating a bit after a strong run.



Bezos is not the only billionaire to get much richer during the pandemic. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has gone from No. 31 wealthiest in the world in mid-March to No. 9 as of Tuesday. His net worth has nearly tripled in the last four months, to $69.1 billion from $24.6 billion, largely due to a massive 320% rally in Tesla’s stock. It’s the first time Musk ranks among the world’s top ten richest. “I really couldn’t care less,” Musk told Forbes in early July, commenting on the size of his fortune. “Those numbers rise and fall, but what really matters is making great products that people love.”



Another big gainer of the past several months is Mukesh Ambani, an Indian business magnate and chairman of Reliance Industries, whose telecom firm Reliance Jio has attracted billions of dollars in investments in 2020, including $5.7 billion from Facebook in April and $1.2 billion from U.A.E.’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala in June. On July 15 Google confirmed it would invest $4.5 billion in Jio. That, in turn, has helped lead to a surge in the share price of Reliance. Ambani is now the seventh richest person in the world, worth $71.4 billion, nearly twice his net worth in mid-March. The last time Ambani was in the top 10 was in 2011, with a $27 billion fortune.



Also new to the top ten since March: Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft. Microsoft stock is up a striking 47% since mid March, landing Ballmer at the world’s No. 6 richest, worth $72.1 billion.



Whiplash 2020: Shakeup Among Top 10



Musk and Ballmer join the ​upper echelon, while Buffett falls to his lowest rank in at least 20 years.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/billionaires.png" alt="" class="wp-image-46513" width="686" height="664" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/billionaires.png 592w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/billionaires-300x290.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 686px) 100vw, 686px" /></figure>



Of course, as some climb up the ranks, others must go down – and some go up and down a lot. Bernard Arnault was worth $108 billion in late January. He fell to $76 billion in mid March, as people worried about spending on luxury goods. He is back up to $111.1 billion, and number three in the world.



Despite only a $3.5 billion drop in his net worth since March, Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors of all time, is down four spots and now the eighth richest person in the world. It’s the lowest Buffett has ranked in at least 20 years. The Waltons, the family behind Walmart, had three members – Jim Walton, Alice Walton and Rob Walton – who rounded out the top ten in mid-March. While their net worths on Tuesday were actually up $3 billion, those increases were not enough for them to hold onto their spots as others including Musk, Ambani and Ballmer surged ahead.



The only certainty with markets like this is that billions can be gained – and lost – and regained in a matter of hours.



&#8211; <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/">Angel Au-Yeung</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/worlds-billionaires">Billionaires</a>

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Why Jeff Bezos Lost $8 Billion In The Last 2 Days – And Why That’s Not A Big Deal

One of the most powerful women in the world is teaming up with one of the richest women in the world—Melinda Gates and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/mackenzie-bezos/#efc49bc12948">MacKenzie Bezos</a>, respectively—to host a competition with one goal in mind: gender equality.



Gates and Bezos announced the competition, called the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge, through Pivotal Ventures, Gates’ investment and incubation company. The challenge will be managed by Lever For Change, a MacArthur Foundation affiliate, and will grant $30 million to the organizations (or the coalitions of organizations) with the best ideas for helping to expand women’s power and influence in the United States by 2030.



“Closing the gap on gender equality will benefit everyone. History keeps teaching us that when a diversity of voices is represented in decisions, the outcome is better for all,” MacKenzie Bezos said in a statement Tuesday. “I’m excited that the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge will focus energy and innovation on this vital catalyst for positive change.” 



“The entrenched inequalities that divide America—race, gender, class—will not go away without systems-wide change,” added Melinda Gates in a statement of her own. “This challenge is seeking bold ideas to dismantle the status quo and expand power and influence for women of all backgrounds.”&nbsp;



While Melinda Gates has <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2015/11/23/the-first-woman-of-women-how-melinda-gates-became-the-worlds-most-powerful-advocate-for-women-and-girls/#7eae6d1a4414">long been an outspoken advocate</a> for women’s health and gender equality, Bezos has been quieter with her philanthropy and influence. Since finalizing her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos last year, Bezos has indicated her philanthropic intentions by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkins/2019/05/28/mackenzie-bezos-will-donate-half-her-fortune-to-giving-pledge/#e8b7ffc31d89">signing the Giving Pledge</a> (thereby committing at least half of her now-$51 billion fortune to charity) and joining the board of Blue Meridian, an organization dedicated to helping children and families in poverty. Her contribution to the Equality Can’t Wait initiative marks her biggest public gift to date.



A spokesperson for Lever for Change said that the competition had been in the works for the past six months, and that the timing of its announcement—just weeks after massive protests against systemic racial inequities started spreading across the nation—is not meant to be a reaction to the current reality, but a continuation of serious conversations.



Broadly, the challenge will look for ideas that help dismantle barriers that hold women back (including but not limited to sexual harassment and discrimination, racial inequity, and inadequate federal policies around caregiving); fast-track female participation in sectors like technology, government and entrepreneurship; and change outdated systems and beliefs around gender. Specifically,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.equalitycantwaitchallenge.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to the challenge’s website</a>, successful proposals should create real, measurable change for women in at least one of the following areas: wages and wealth, unpaid care, share of leadership roles, content creation (in other words, increasing the percentage of cultural and intellectual content created by women), and public perception.



&#8220;When I taught my first course on women in the U.S. economy back in 1985, a female full-time, year-round worker made 65 cents for every dollar earned by a man. In 2018, she earned 82 cents. That’s a raise of less than a penny a year,” noted Cecilia Conrad, the CEO of Lever for Change. She’s hopeful that the Equality Can’t Wait competition will accelerate parity in wages and societal treatment.



To participate in the challenge, organizations must register online by September 1, 2020; fuller applications are due by September 22. Finalists will be announced in early 2021, and winners will be chosen next summer. The $30 million in prize money will be divided among the two most compelling ideas (each will receive a minimum of $10 million) and the remaining finalists.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/">Maggie McGrath</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbeswomen">ForbesWomen</a>

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MacKenzie Bezos And Melinda Gates Team Up On $30 Million Gender Equity Contest

TOPLINE Jeff Bezos’ wealth suddenly caught Twitter&#8217;s attention on Wednesday amid ‘claims’ that the world’s richest man is set to become a trillionaire, in part thanks to pandemic-driven demand that has sent Amazon stock soaring.



KEY FACTS



<ul><li>Bezos was trending on Twitter on Wednesday after a months-old <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.comparisun.com/resources/the-trillion-dollar-club/" target="_blank">study</a> by small business advice platform, Comparisun, resurfaced, claiming that Bezos net worth could reach $1 trillion by 2026.</li></ul>



<ul><li>The company analyzed the market cap of the highest valued firms on the New York Stock Exchange, as well as Forbes’ 25 richest people. Chinese real estate billionaire Xu Jiayin is second on the study’s list.</li></ul>



<ul><li>But Bezos has a long way to go to become the world’s first trillionaire. At the time of publication, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/#26e34b671b23">Forbes values</a> the 56-year-old’s net worth to be $143 billion. He owns a 11.2% stake in Amazon, and his wealth has surged upwards from around $125 billion in March.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Amazon is predicted to be one of the winners of the pandemic as demand for online shopping, streaming and delivery services flies.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Sales in the first three months of the year topped $75 billion, up from $60 billion in 2019. The potential for a second wave of the virus and further lockdowns could keep that demand high.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Bezos joined Forbes’ <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/#62bb434c7e2f">list</a> of 400 richest Americans in 1998, four years after he founded Amazon, and had a net worth of $1.6 billion at the time.</li></ul>



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https://twitter.com/Thomas_A_Moore/status/1260788716693487616?s=20
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KEY BACKGROUND



Amazon&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/amazon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AMZN</a>&nbsp;shares are up more than&nbsp;<a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/amzn-stock" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">28%</a>&nbsp;so far this year. But the company is now up against “the hardest time” it has ever faced, Bezos&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/30/amazon-q1-beats-on-net-sales-of-75-5b-but-posts-net-income-of-2-5b-down-1b-on-a-year-ago/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;in April. The company predicted operating profits of $4 billion in the three months to June, but is now committing that entire amount to “COVID-related expenses” such as higher wages for hourly teams, buying up personal protective equipment for staff, and developing coronavirus testing facilities.



The company has been under fire from former employees—both office staff and warehouse workers—for allegedly silencing them after they spoke out about a lack of protection against the virus. Amazon has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/03/31/amazon-fires-worker-who-led-warehouse-walkout-demanding-coronavirus-protections/#2e290bfb4c0c">let go</a>&nbsp;a number of employees, claiming that they&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/04/14/amazon-fires-two-more-employees-after-calling-out-warehouse-working-conditions/#5a28a575199e">breached</a>&nbsp;company policy.&nbsp;



TANGENT



In February, Bezos pocketed $3.1 billion after selling $4 billion worth of Amazon shares since January.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/">Isabel Togoh</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/business">Business</a>

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Jeff Bezos ‘Trillionaire’ Is Trending On Twitter. Here’s Why

MacKenzie Bezos is an author, an early Amazon employee, a billionaire — and isn’t talking.



MacKenzie Bezos was not fussy, which was helpful, as there
was no time for fussiness at Amazon headquarters in early 1996. She shared her
office with a junior employee in a space that doubled as the company kitchen.
For 12 hours a day, as workers squeezed by to use the microwave, she presided
over the accounting. At night she headed to the warehouse to pack orders. She
“was a huge contributor,” says Mike Hanlon, Amazon’s seventh employee. “She
really is a talented person in a way that I think gets lost when you’re the
billionaire’s wife.”



The mystery around MacKenzie, 49, seems carefully
cultivated. She largely slipped into anonymity after Amazon’s early years and
has granted no interviews since January 2019, when her split from husband Jeff
became public. 



The couple finalized their divorce in July, with MacKenzie getting 25% of his Amazon stock. That stake is currently worth $36.1 billion, enough to put her 15th on 2019’s Forbes 400. “She should have gotten 50% of the company,” says Nick Hanauer, one of Amazon’s first investors. “MacKenzie was an equal partner to Jeff in the early days.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://www.forbeswomanafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/FO103119_067-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-41575"/><figcaption>NEW YORK CITY, NY &#8211; NOVEMBER 5: Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos attend The Aspen Institute 26th Annual Awards Dinner at The Plaza Hotel on November 5, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by MAX RAPP/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure>



In keeping with character, MacKenzie wouldn’t talk for this
story. To shed some light on her, we spent weeks contacting more than 100
friends and former classmates and coworkers; even that yielded only a hazy
picture, one of an intensely private but talented woman who has, quietly,
excelled at every stage of her life.



MacKenzie grew up in San Francisco, a middle child with two
siblings. At six, she wrote a 142-page book called The Book Worm. Her parents,
a homemaker and a financial planner, sent her to Hotchkiss, the Connecticut
boarding school, where she graduated a year early. She studied at Cambridge,
then Princeton, where she majored in English; Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni
Morrison was her thesis advisor. “She was generally a very poised and a quiet
and brilliant presence,” says Jeff Nunokawa, one of her English professors. 



After graduating, she took a job at the hedge fund D.E. Shaw, where she began dating Jeff Bezos, who left to found Amazon in 1994. From the outset, MacKenzie was heavily involved. “No one really had job titles . . . so she did just about everything,” says Tod Nelson, another early employee.



READ MORE: <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2019/05/28/mackenzie-bezos-will-donate-half-her-fortune-to-charity/">MacKenzie Bezos Will Donate Half Her Fortune To Charity</a>



MacKenzie pulled back around the time Amazon went public, in
1997, to focus on fiction writing. She kept a low profile until 2005, when
HarperCollins published her first novel, The Testing of Luther Albright.



Morrison deemed it “a rarity.” MacKenzie followed it in 2013 with Traps. The more recent chapters of her life are largely unknown. In 2018 she and Jeff committed $2 billion to fight homelessness and support nonprofit preschools. In May, as their divorce neared completion, she signed the Giving Pledge, promising to donate at least half her wealth. True to form, she hasn’t said a word about where those billions will go.



&#8211;Noah Kirsch, Forbes Staff, Media

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New Billionaire Ghost Writer: The Mystery Around MacKenzie Bezos

Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos lost his title as the richest man in the world during after-hours trading on Thursday, after his ecommerce behemoth reported lackluster third-quarter earnings.&nbsp;



Amazon shares fell 7% in after-hours trading, knocking Bezos’ fortune down to $103.9 billion. That puts him at number two among the world’s richest. The new number one: Microsoft cofounder and fellow Washington state resident Bill Gates, who is worth $105.7 billion.&nbsp;



Bezos became the richest man in the world in 2018 and the first centibillionaire to ever appear on the The Forbes 400 that year with a net worth of $160 billion, ending Gates’ 24-year run as number one. 



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But the Amazon chief executive&#8217;s net worth drop isn’t entirely due to the decline in Amazon shares. 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.&nbsp;



On Thursday afternoon, Amazon reported a 26% drop in net income in its third quarter, its first profit decline since 2017.&nbsp; In after-hours trading, Amazon dropped nearly 9% to $1,624 per share in the 20 minutes after the market closed. It has since rebounded slightly, hovering at $1,657 per share at 7:30 p.m. ET



The company said it is investing heavily in logistics and delivery infrastructure, with the goal of making one-day shipping the norm for Amazon Prime members. 



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The company disclosed during its second quarter earnings call in July that it had spent “a little bit” more than the estimated $800 million that it has previously said it would invest in one-day shipping infrastructure. 



The company declined to disclose how much it had spent on one-day shipping in the third quarter. But chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky did disclose Thursday that the company plans to spend $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter, presumably to finance the one-day shipping initiative. 



Gates, meanwhile, has been out of Microsoft since 2014 when he stepped down as chairman of the storied company, though he remains a board member. He has sold or given away the majority of his Microsoft stake and diversified his wealth over time. He is now the co-chairman of the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation, the largest private charitable foundation in the world.&nbsp;



Bill Gates debuted on Forbes’ first ever billionaire list in 1987 with a net worth of $1.25 billion. Bezos first joined The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans in 1998, one year after Amazon went public, with a net worth of $1.6 billion. 



-Angel Au-Yeung; Forbes

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Jeff Bezos Is No Longer The Richest Person In The World After Amazon Stock Plunges

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos sold over 530,000 Amazon shares in the first two days of August for $990 million. After taxes, he will net an estimated $750 million in cash from the sales.&nbsp;



The sales on August 1 and 2 followed $1.4 billion (after-tax) worth of Amazon stock he sold&nbsp;in the final three days of July.&nbsp;



As the richest man on earth, Bezos is now worth an estimated $110.1 billion, using Monday’s closing share price for Amazon.



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A spokesman for Amazon has not commented on the purpose for Bezos’ last stock sales. The leading theory is that it is to fund Blue Origin, a space exploration company that Bezos founded in September 2000. Bezos told journalists at a space exploration conference in 2017 that he was funding Blue Origin by selling some of his Amazon shares.



According to documents filed on Monday afternoon with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the world’s richest man sold over 530,000 shares of Amazon when the stock price was around $1,900 a share. On Monday, the stock closed at $1,765 a share.



-Angel Au-Yeung; Forbes Africa



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Jeff Bezos Unloads Another $990 Million Worth Of Amazon Shares In Early August

On Wednesday evening, hours after the stock markets had closed, Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos filed paperwork with the Securities Exchange Commission which showed he had sold $1.8 billion worth of Amazon shares over the final three days of July. After taxes, he will net about $1.4 billion.



Bezos sold slightly more than 900,000 shares of Amazon between July 29 and July 31, when the e-commerce behometh’s stock price was around $1,900 a share. His net worth is now $115 billion, using Wednesday&#8217;s closing share price.



The last time that Bezos sold Amazon shares was in October 2018. 



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The new filings also show that Bezos has given his ex-wife MacKenzie 25% of his Amazon stake, or 19.7 million shares. In April, as the couple announced they were getting divorced, Mackenzie tweeted that Jeff would keep 75% of his Amazon stake. 



Jeff Bezos will continue to exercise voting control over the 19.7 million shares of Amazon he transferred to his wife, according to an SEC filing in April. Her Amazon shares are worth nearly $36.8 billion, making her the third richest woman in the world.  



Jeff Bezos has sold large chunks of Amazon stock before, but this appears to be the largest sale, measured in dollars. Bezos sold Amazon stock worth $1.7 billion in 2017 in two separate transactions in May and November of that year. It was reported that Bezos planned to sell $1 billion worth of stock every year to fund Blue Origin, his space exploration company. 



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A spokesman for Amazon has not responded to requests for comment regarding the purpose of Bezos’ latest stock sale.



Bezos has done little in terms of philanthropy so far. In September 2018, he announced the Bezos Day One Fund, a $2 billion pledge for two causes: helping homeless families find shelter and creating Montessori-inspired preschools in the U.S. 



-Angel Au-Yeung; Forbes



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Jeff Bezos Sells About $1.8 Billion Worth Of Amazon Shares In Three Days

One of the world&#8217;s ultimate taste-makers, Bernard Arnault entered an ultra-rarefied club this week. As of Thursday June 20, he was worth just over $100 billion, making him one of three people in the world with 12-figure fortunes. 



He joins Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, worth an estimated $157.5 billion, and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, worth an estimated $103.1 billion. Bezos, who first passed $100 billion in 2017, will soon give a slice of that fortune away. 



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He and his wife, MacKenzie, are in the process of finalizing their divorce. The couple announced in early April that she will receive a quarter of his Amazon stake, currently valued at more than $37 billion. Gates reached $100 billion in April, thanks to strong earnings from Microsoft.



Arnault’s luxury goods group, LVMH Moët Hennessy–Louis Vuitton, has been having a great year. In April, it announced record first quarter sales and profits on top of a strong 2018. Its shares are up more than 40% so far in 2019, boosting Arnault’s fortune by more than $20 billion.With his family, he owns 46% of LVMH and serves as both its chairman and CEO.



<figure><iframe src="https://cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fe.infogram.com%2F_%2FcyePeUtIgfbGOdwz1CPc%3Fsrc%3Dembed&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Finfogram.com%2F1pmr7xxm5jyg3mh39xvvl3xn2wtzry9mrgq&amp;image=https%3A%2F%2Finfogram-thumbs-1024.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fbc5d4970-ab4d-4903-8f35-e47d52abb137.jpg&amp;key=3ce26dc7e3454db5820ba084d28b4935&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=infogram"></iframe></figure>



The growth comes as high-end buyers around the world continue to pick up luxury goods and spirits, despite fears that demand, particularly in China, would slow down. Thirty-five years after Arnault first got into luxury goods with the purchase of Christian Dior, he continues to refresh LVMH by finding ways to appeal to a new generation of customers while retaining the traditional values and high quality that have defined its brands. 



That includes innovative partnerships like the two with Rihanna — Fenty Beauty and Fenty fashion house — as well as recent deals such as the acquisition of Belmond, which operates luxury hotels, trains and even safaris.



“People do not understand that success stems from the cohabitation of two contradictory spirits: the artist&#8217;s vision and the logic of worldwide marketing,&#8221; Arnault told&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;in 1997. &#8220;It&#8217;s a very complex process.&#8221;



Forbes first wrote about Arnault in 1991 when he was worth $200 million. He has since been featured several times and has appeared on our cover. He made his debut in our Billionaires ranks in 1997. Some readers may know his story well but it’s one worth retelling.



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A native of France&#8217;s cold, flat industrial north, Arnault was a star student at France&#8217;s prestigious Ecole Polytechnique. The son of a construction tycoon, Arnault spent three years in the U.S. in the early 1980s trying to establish a branch of his family’s real estate business, Ferinel, as a developer of Florida vacation properties. 



After three years he returned home. But he learned a valued lesson in America, according to a 1997 Forbes <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1997/0602/5911080a.html" target="_blank">profile on Arnault</a>. Before leaving, he sold his Mediterranean-style home facing Long Island Sound in New Rochelle, N.Y. to American tycoon John Kluge, owner of the mansion next door. Kluge tore it down because it blocked his view.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;It was just incredible!&#8221; Arnault told Forbes. &#8220;It was a very nice place, but two days after he bought it, he tore my house down! It&#8217;s so very&#8230;American.&#8221; Lesson learned: &#8220;When something has to be done,&#8221; says Arnault, &#8220;do it! In France we are full of good ideas, but we rarely put them into practice.&#8221;</blockquote>



He returned back to France ready to make some moves. In 1984, Arnault put up $15 million of his family’s money to rescue bankrupt textile empire Boussac (Lazard put up the rest). Among Boussac’s mixed bag assets was money-losing fashion house Christian Dior. 



That became the first of many Arnault acquisitions and the cornerstone of his massive luxury goods empire. Over the years, LVMH snapped up such brands such as Louis Vuitton, Givenchy and Sephora. Today LVMH has nearly $53 billion in sales from 70 brands and 4,590 retail stores.   



-Luisa Kroll; Forbes Staff

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Luxury Goods Titan Bernard Arnault Becomes World’s Third $100 Billion Man

From the Caribbean to the South African coast, marine&nbsp; archaeologist Matthew Arnett’s work involves recovering treasures from the deep – and preserving them for posterity.



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I have a pet peeve with people like Elon Musk who want to
jet off to space,” remarks Matthew Arnett, who has made it his business to
explore the depths of the world’s oceans.



“I would think 99% of the sea is left unexplored. I believe
there are answers there that come from energy and renewable resources. There is
a twilight zone that we don’t even know is there, and they want to go to
Mars!”&nbsp; 



&nbsp;It is the planet we are in that Arnett, the co-founder and CEO of PO8, has made his priority, uncovering treasures that date as far back as the 1400s. 



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“Millions should be spent under the ocean instead of jetting
off to space so quick. There are many aspects of the blue economy that have not
been explored and there are so many opportunities that come out of it,” says
the explorer who is based in the Caribbean and visiting South Africa.



PO8 is a marine archaeology startup that uses blockchain
technology to recover sunken artifacts from the ocean floor. 



Using the blockchain model, through PO8, ownership of the
recovered treasures and artifacts is with non-fungible tokens, which are
asset-backed tokens. 



Arnett says the sensitive, more lucrative approach is preserving these artifacts in museums and not giving them away to private collectors. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“They [the artifacts] have to stay in the public domain and that is why there are the museums.” </blockquote>



With innovative ways of looking at the blue economy, the PO8
project, based in the Caribbean, also aims to connect lost histories across the
globe. 



The growing historical tourism market in the Caribbean
generates revenue without selling any of the recovered artifacts, leading to
social and economic impact that he says can be duplicated in Africa. 



“Because of the success in the Caribbean, it only makes
sense to come back to Africa to put the same model in place. 



“There are millions and billions of dollars in the ocean,”
Arnett says. 



“We are going to find other things that relate back to
Africa, so we might also be able to find some missing links from an
anthropology stand point.”&nbsp; 



He believes his work contributes to transforming the narrative of the Caribbean that’s often only known for tourism. “When you look at the Caribbean, it is no longer just sun, sand and sea; there is a tech tsunami that is coming,” he says. 



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“I am from an island known for pirates. There is a pirate
who was able to withstand the British government for 31 years while the British
government controlled other parts of the Bahamas. He used the Bahamas as his
treasure chest… and that blood is soaked in the soil; that is out of which I am
born. I was raised with these stories of piracy.” 



&nbsp;As Arnett taps into
new knowledge systems, he believes that there is value in ensuring that all
have access to his findings. 



“These artifacts are open to anthropologists,
archaeologists, or to university programs all over the world to come to the
Bahamas and study these objects to draw parallels between other pieces and
artifacts that might be similar to them. Essentially, we are telling the story
of our past in a way that it can be globally accepted and people can own a part
of history.”

Tag: Jeff Bezos

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