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.”

Matthew

The Blue Economy: ‘Billions Of Dollars  In The Ocean’

MacKenzie Bezos is the latest billionaire to sign the Giving Pledge and commit at least half of her $35 billion fortune to charity. Bezos joins&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-zuckerberg/#36edfd833e06" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Mark Zuckerberg</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/richard-branson/#36de51286ff5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Richard Branson</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/robert-f-smith/#5e2f42da2236" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Robert F. Smith</a>&nbsp;on the list of donors to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett&#8217;s initiative.



In a letter published by&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://givingpledge.org/Pledger.aspx?id=393" target="_blank">Giving Pledge, Bezos</a>&nbsp;writes of having “a disproportionate amount of money to share” and credits “an infinite series of influences and lucky breaks we can never fully understand” for her wealth.



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Bezos’ signature, alongside hedge fund billionaires&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/david-harding/#128137bd574e" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">David Harding</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/paul-tudor-jones-ii/#cf738ae719c1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Paul Tudor Jones</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/brian-armstrong/#ba0a5735077c" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Brian Armstrong</a>&nbsp;chief executive of cryptocurrency company Coinbase, and WhatsApp’s co-founder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/brian-acton/#4ff0f3645cfc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Brian Acton</a>, brings the total signatories to more than 200 people.



The Giving Pledge began in August 2010 when 40 of America’s wealthiest individuals made a commitment to give more than half of their wealth away. The scheme is described as an “open invitation for billionaires &#8230; to publicly dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy”.



Although MacKenzie Bezos doesn’t list any particular causes she writes, “My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care. But I won’t wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”



Who is MacKenzie Bezos?



MacKenzie Bezos will become the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2019/04/04/mackenzie-bezos-to-receive-more-than-35-billion-of-amazon-stock-will-be-worlds-third-richest-woman/#531bed4c1001" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">world’s third richest woman</a>&nbsp;later this year after announcing&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2019/01/10/fortunes-and-farewells-from-bezos-to-disney-a-guide-to-the-biggest-nastiest-and-weirdest-billionaire-divorces/#53bc7cf0540a" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the terms of the divorce settlement</a>&nbsp;with her husband and Amazon founder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/#681c86bc1b23" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeff Bezos</a>.



Although amicable, the settlement is biggest of all time with MacKenzie receiving 4% of Amazon stock, worth more than $35 billion on April 4 2019.



With Amazon&#8217;s current market cap of $897.66 billion, MacKenzie&#8217;s 4% stake is now worth $35.9 billion.



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MacKenzie is also a successful novelist, described by author Toni Morrison as &#8220;one of the best students I&#8217;ve ever had.&#8221; She met Jeff Bezos while both were working at hedge fund D.E. Shaw in New York and they married in 1993. MacKenzie Bezos confirmed her divorce on twitter, stating she was, “Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff.”



L&#8217;Oreal heiress&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/francoise-bettencourt-meyers/#2d000f042b06" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Francoise Bettencourt Meyers</a>&nbsp;is the world’s richest woman with a net worth of $53.6 billion, while&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/alice-walton/#52f0504b4eb2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alice Walton</a>&nbsp;of Walmart fame is the only other woman ahead of MacKenzie with a $47.1 billion fortune.



-David Dawkins;Forbes Staff

Axel Springer award ceremony

MacKenzie Bezos Will Donate Half Her Fortune To Charity

It was bound to happen sooner than later: Amazon has surpassed Walmart as the biggest retailer on the planet.



The e-commerce juggernaut&nbsp;jumped&nbsp;25 spots to #28 on&nbsp;Forbes&#8216; Global 2000 list&nbsp;of the world’s biggest public companies, as measured by a composite score of revenues, profits, assets and market value. That was sufficient enough for it to steal the&nbsp;title of the world&#8217;s largest retailer away from Walmart, which slipped five spots to #29 on this year&#8217;s overall list.



Amazon has continued to chart a path to retail domination, with the number of Americans who subscribe to&nbsp;Amazon Prime topping 100 million in 2019. The company has beefed up the benefits attached to its annual membership in an effort to make it a must-have in every household, such as offering special discounts at Whole Foods, investing heavily in&nbsp;television and movies and expanding free shipping. In April, Amazon said it would invest $800 million to&nbsp;make&nbsp;free one-day shipping the new normal,&nbsp;up from&nbsp;the&nbsp;standard two-day shipping the company offers now.



Thanks to investor enthusiasm in its breakneck growth, Amazon has a high-flying stock that has made its founder Jeff Bezos the world&#8217;s richest man and given it a market capitalization of over $900 billion, which is rivaled only by Apple. On this yardstick, it has long trounced Walmart, which lags behind with a market cap of less than $300 billion.



Amazon has been catching up on other measures, too. Its cloud computing business has practically been printing money and last year&nbsp;the company&nbsp;made a record-breaking $10 billion in profits. That is up sharply from $3 billion the year before and easily tops the $6.7 billion that fell to Walmart&#8217;s bottom line.



Nevertheless, Walmart remains larger on&nbsp;some counts: It still&nbsp;pulls in more than double the revenue and has more assets on its balance sheet due to the&nbsp;significant real estate that&nbsp;it owns. It also has 2.2 million workers, which is nearly four times the number of employees that Amazon has on payroll.



Behind Amazon and Walmart, the third-largest retailer on the planet is Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Its core business is selling goods via the internet, but it has also invested heavily in areas like entertainment, logistics and payments. Sales grew 51% to $56 billion in fiscal 2019, driven by the spending of its 654&nbsp;million active retail customers. While Alibaba is still seeing immense growth, its growth rate has ticked down amid&nbsp;an economic slowdown in China and an escalating trade war with the United States.



Home improvement stores like Home Depot (#126) and Lowe&#8217;s (#234) continue to do well, as do discount stores like TJ Maxx (#394) and Ross (#671).



Meanwhile, CVS fell out of the top three largest retailers. The drugstore chain lost $600 million in 2018, as its $69 billion takeover of Aetna and goodwill impairment charges in its long-term care business, Omnicare, ate into its bottom line.&nbsp;The company is now ranked #410 on the overall list, down sharply from #69 in 2017.



Other retailers are facing more existential problems. Victoria&#8217;s Secret parent company L Brands fell 230 spots to #1311 on the overall list as it faces mounting competition from upstarts like ThirdLove and&nbsp;True&amp;Co&nbsp;and traditional players like Target and Chico&#8217;s.&nbsp;Bed Bath &amp; Beyond, which is trying to ward off a group of activist investors intent on shaking up management, slipped 348 spots to #1997. The embattled Sears, recently out of bankruptcy, fell 166 spots to #1913.



-Lauren Debter;Forbes Staff

Amazon Surpasses Walmart As The World’s Largest Retailer

This Thursday, Jeff Bezos will make an announcement about his space company, Blue Origin. The image on the invitation sent to members of the press, a view of the Earth as seen from the Moon, suggests the Amazon founder will unveil  Blue Origin’s plans to send both robotic and human missions to the lunar surface, possibly with a NASA contract in hand.



If that’s the case, he won’t be alone. Aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin has already unveiled its lunar plans in partnership with NASA. And Elon Musk’s SpaceX has a plan for a lunar flyby mission, while NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstein suggested to a Senate committee in March that the agency was open to using commercial heavy-lift rockets for its lunar crewed missions. SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy could serve such a mission.



The last few years have seen an increasing interest in going back to the Moon. The Trump Administration has announced it wants NASA to put humans back on the Moon by 2024, and the agency has also announced plans for a “<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars/lunar-outpost/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lunar Gateway</a>” &#8211; a space station orbiting the Moon that would be developed in collaboration with multiple space agencies. &nbsp;That space station brings with it opportunities for commercial companies to develop lunar capabilities to provide support for missions at the Gateway.



Lockheed Martin has a long history with NASA and lunar exploration—it was one of the contractors on the Apollo missions. But billionaires Musk, who runs Tesla as well as SpaceX, and Bezos represent the burgeoning commercial space industry, and the paths the two respective men took to get to this point couldn’t be much different.



What the two companies have in common is that both are very much products of their founders’ visions. Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, just three years after Amazon’s IPO fed his fortune. Two years later, fresh off the sale of PayPal, Musk founded SpaceX with his own personal fortune.



It’s from there, however, that the paths of the companies diverged. For the next 15 years, Blue Origin barely made any noise, save for some controversy as Bezos bought up land in Texas to serve as the company’s test facility in the early 2000s, and some small announcements about milestones it had achieved in agreements made with NASA for about $25.7 million in funding for space development. Bezos remains the sole owner of Blue Origin, and&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates that the world’s wealthiest man has funneled over $1.5 billion of his personal fortune into the company, financed by sales of Amazon stock.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5cd38d915218470008b0301d/960x0.jpg?fit=scale" alt="Time-lapsed photo of SpaceX Falcon 9 launch"/><figcaption>Time-lapsed photo of SpaceX Falcon 9 launchSPACEX</figcaption></figure>



SpaceX, in the meantime, has been anything but quiet. The company began making noise in December 2003, when it drove its first rocket, the Falcon One, from the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California to Washington, D.C. in order to unveil it at the National Mall for an invited group of Congressional staffers, NASA and FAA officials.. Musk regularly promotes the company and its plans for the future, his eyes firmly set on Musk’s personal vision that SpaceX is to be the vanguard of humans becoming a multiplanetary civilization.



Musk was also more aggressive in obtaining venture financing and government contracts in order to support his company. Though he still maintains majority ownership (Forbes&nbsp;estimates his stake in the company is over 50%), SpaceX has also raised over $2.5 billion to date in venture financing, grants and debt, with a current valuation of over $31.5 billion, according to Pitchbook. Recent SEC filings show it aims to raise another $500 million in capital this year.



Throughout the past decade, SpaceX has kept itself in the public eye —even as it has brought the “move fast and break things” ethos of Silicon Valley to the traditionally more conservative aerospace industry.



“SpaceX is off trying new things, rapidly innovating, breaking things,” said Chad Anderson, founder of Space Angels, a VC firm specializing in the space industry. &nbsp;“They test quite a bit, and we’ve seen some failures. We’ve seen explosions of rockets — they even put a highlight reel together of rockets exploding as they tried to land them. They take it as a point of pride that they’re willing to try new things and they’re really captured the imagination of the public that way.”



By contrast, Blue Origin rarely makes major announcements about future plans, unless it’s unavoidable due to public contracts or other reasons, preferring instead to focus its press efforts on what it’s accomplished. “Bezos proudly proclaims whenever he does a big announcement, he likes to talk about the things that he’s done,” said Anderson. One rare exception for this has been its plans for the Moon. Its robotic cargo delivery lander, Blue Moon, was first announced in 2017, and last summer the company revealed that it had a five year plan to get to the Moon.



While SpaceX has adopted a high-profile view of its risky, iterative innovation strategy, Blue Origin’s development is nearly the exact opposite. The company motto is&nbsp;Gradatim Ferociter, a Latin phrase meaning Step By Step, Ferociously. In interviews, Bezos has quoted the old military maxim that “slow is smooth and smooth is fast,” and every time one of its resuable rockets has a successful launch and landing, a tortoise is painted on its side, a nod to Aesop’s moral that “slow and steady wins the race.”



Despite Bezos’ faith in a more slow-paced, perfectionist approach to development, it’s undeniable that SpaceX has seen more success &#8211; at least so far. Though Blue Origin has had 11 successful launches to date, it has yet to send any spacecraft to orbit, instead keeping its launches suborbital, like the Mercury spacecraft that its current system is inspired by.



SpaceX, meanwhile, has had over 70 successful commercial orbital launches, which include not only putting satellites in orbit but also 15 successful deliveries of cargo to the International Space Station. It was the first company to make a cargo delivery to the station, and the company has also seen two successful launches of its Falcon Heavy rocket, currently the most powerful rocket in commercial production.



This track record has also come at some cost to the company. It’s had multiple launch failures, some of which have resulted in the loss of customer payloads, and more recently, a test fire of rockets on the spacecraft it’s developing to deliver astronauts to the space station led to the destruction of that craft— and has also likely pushed the schedule for sending astronauts to the station back to 2020. The company was originally set to have its first successful crewed flight in 2017.



In this billionaire race to the Moon, Bezos and Musk have set themselves up as the Tortoise and the Hare, respectively. But it likely won’t be until at least the mid-2020s that we learn which approach will win.



-Alex Knapp; Forbes Staff

960×0

Jeff Bezos And Elon Musk Want To Get To The Moon—They Just Disagree On How To Get There

Jeff Bezos announced on Thursday that he will give a 4% stake in Amazon—currently worth more than $35 billion—to his wife, MacKenzie, as part of their pending divorce, making it by far the largest divorce settlement in history. In January, soon after the couple announced their separation, Forbes assembled a list of the largest, strangest and most notable billionaire disunions on record—at least where we could follow the money. In some cases, like the split between Google’s Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki, we don’t know the size of the settlement because divorce filings were sealed. 



Below are five of the largest settlements, in descending order.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2019/04/05/jeff-bezos-to-give-mackenzie-25-of-his-amazon-stake-worth-tens-of-billions-in-divorce/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Jeff Bezos To Give MacKenzie 25% Of His Amazon Stake, Worth Tens Of Billions, In Divorce (opens in a new tab)">Jeff Bezos To Give MacKenzie 25% Of His Amazon Stake, Worth Tens Of Billions, In Divorce</a>



1) Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos &#8211; At least $35 billion.



The couple met while both were working at hedge fund D.E. Shaw in New York. After they moved to Seattle, MacKenzie helped Jeff get Amazon off the ground. On April 4, they announced the terms of their divorce, which will likely become official over the summer: she will receive about 4% of Amazon’s outstanding shares—now worth over $35 billion. Jeff will hold on to all of rocket company Blue Origin and The Washington Post. Once the divorce is finalized, MacKenzie will likely be the world’s third-richest woman.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/02/08/jeff-bezos-says-national-enquirer-owner-tried-to-blackmail-him/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Jeff Bezos Says National Enquirer Owner Tried To Blackmail Him (opens in a new tab)">Jeff Bezos Says National Enquirer Owner Tried To Blackmail Him</a>



2) Bill and Sue Gross &#8211; $1.3 billion



The Grosses’ messy split minted a new billionaire and dragged down another. Sue filed for divorce in 2016 from her husband, the founder of asset-manager Pimco, and she walked away a year later with a $1.3 billion fortune. That haul included a $36 million Laguna Beach house and “Le Repos,” a contested 1932 Picasso painting that she later sold for $35 million. While Bill originally tried to hang on to one of their three pet cats, Sue eventually got custody of all of them. Bill lost his spot on The Forbes 400 in 2018 following 14 consecutive years on the list. Both now run their own charitable vehicles.



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3) Steve and Elaine Wynn &#8211; $850 million



The cofounders of casino giant Wynn Resorts divorced (for the second time) in 2010. That settlement dictated that Elaine, a Wynn Resorts board member since 2002, receive 11 million shares, then worth an estimated $795 million. Steve also sold around $114 million in stock that year—some, if not all, went to Elaine as part of the deal. She then sued Wynn Resorts in 2012 to sell part of her 9% stake and was kicked off the board three years later amid an ugly proxy battle. 



 After Steve stepped down as CEO and chairman in February 2018 amid sexual harassment allegations that he has denied, he sold all his shares. Elaine, now worth $2 billion, is Wynn Resorts’ largest shareholder.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="T (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/lists/2019/04/05/the-10-most-notable-new-billionaires-of-2019/" target="_blank">The 10 Most Notable New Billionaires Of 2019</a>



4) Harold Hamm and Sue Ann Arnall &#8211; $975 million



After three years of bitter court proceedings, oil tycoon Harold in 2015 tried to finally end his 26-year marriage with Sue Ann (no prenup) by writing her a check in the amount of $974,790,317.77 from his Morgan Stanley account. She deposited it, but then changed her mind, decided she wanted more and filed an appeal seeking a bigger share of the $13.7 billion fortune tied to Hamm’s 75% ownership in publicly traded Continental Resources. In April 2015 the Oklahoma Supreme Court ended the saga, granting Harold’s motion to dismiss her appeal, reasoning from precedent that Sue Ann had agreed to the settlement by signing and depositing the check. Sue Ann subsequently funded a political action committee that succeeded in its effort to unseat the judge who presided over the divorce.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2019/04/02/more-than-a-dozen-of-europes-wealthiest-billionaires-and-their-families-had-nazi-ties/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="More Than A Dozen European Billionaires—Linked To BMW, L’Oréal, Bosch—Have Families With Past Nazi Ties (opens in a new tab)">More Than A Dozen European Billionaires—Linked To BMW, L’Oréal, Bosch—Have Families With Past Nazi Ties</a>



5) Roy E. and Patricia Disney &#8211; $600 million



Roy and his wife filed for divorce in 2007 at the ages of 77 and 72, respectively, after 52 years of marriage. Roy, a nephew of Walt Disney, was worth approximately $1.3 billion at the time. Previously a Forbes 400 mainstay, he lost nearly half of his fortune in the split and was dropped from the list. In 2008, he married writer and producer Leslie DeMeuse. He died a year later; Patricia followed in 2012. A family foundation with assets of $122 million (as of 2016) bearing both of their names supports environmental and economic causes.



&#8211;Compiled by Madeline Berg, Deniz Cam, Kathleen Chaykowski, Lauren Debter, Kerry A. Dolan, Alex Fang, Luisa Kroll, Chloe Sorvino and Jennifer Wang.



&#8211; Noah Kirsch; Forbes Staff

Bezos By Far: The 5 Largest Billionaire Divorces In History

Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon, announced on Thursday that he will transfer roughly 4% of the company’s stock to his wife, MacKenzie, most likely by early July. The couple are in the process of finalizing their divorce.



Those shares are worth more than $35 billion as of 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday. That would make MacKenzie the third-richest woman in the world, behind L’Oréal’s Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, who is worth an estimated $52.9 billion, and Walmart’s Alice Walton, who is worth $45 billion. She would rank as the planet’s 26th-richest person, ahead of Nike’s Phil Knight.



Jeff Bezos will remain the world’s richest person, with a net worth above $110 billion, per early Thursday afternoon stock prices. Bill Gates is the world’s second-wealthiest individual, boasting an estimated $99.5 billion fortune.



While still pending, the Bezos divorce settlement will likely be&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2019/01/10/fortunes-and-farewells-from-bezos-to-disney-a-guide-to-the-biggest-nastiest-and-weirdest-billionaire-divorces/#24ad167e540a" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the largest in world history</a>. Other divorces of the ultrarich include Steve and Elaine Wynn (she received an estimated $850 million settlement), as well as Bill and Susan Gross (she received a $1.3 billion settlement).



In a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/1113851402965487616" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statement</a>&nbsp;posted to his Twitter account, Jeff Bezos said, “In all our work together, MacKenzie’s abilities have been on full display. She has been an extraordinary partner, ally, and mother.”



MacKenzie posted a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/mackenziebezos/status/1113851260040503296" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweet</a>&nbsp;of her own, saying, “Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff from each other. … Happy to be giving him all my interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75% of our Amazon stock plus voting control of my shares to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies.”



The couple filed a petition for divorce on April 4, and they expect an official decree to be issued in early July, they said in an SEC filing that outlined the transfer of shares. The filing noted that Jeff Bezos will continue to exercise voting control over MacKenzie’s shares, unless she sells them on the open market or gives them to qualifying nonprofits.



If MacKenzie transfers shares, the recipient of the stock must sign a similar agreement granting Jeff Bezos voting control.



The couple&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2019/01/09/jeff-bezos-worlds-richest-person-announces-divorce-after-25-years-of-marriage/#6b8f3f17db7d" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a>&nbsp;their divorce in January, following 25 years of marriage. Their separation stirred a tabloid frenzy, as intimate text messages between Bezos and his romantic partner, Lauren Sanchez, a TV anchor, were leaked by the&nbsp;National Enquirer.



Bezos subsequently&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2019/02/07/jeff-bezos-details-blackmail-attempt-by-publisher-of-national-enquirer/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">published</a>&nbsp;an open letter accusing American Media Inc., which owns the&nbsp;National Inquirer, of extortion and blackmail. AMI has denied wrongdoing.



Bezos also hired a team of investigators to determine who accessed his private messages. His consultant Gavin De Becker ultimately&nbsp;accused&nbsp;the Saudi Arabian government of illicitly gaining access to Bezos’ cellphone. Saudi officials have denied that allegation.



-Angel Au-Yeung; Forbes Staff



-Noah Kirsch; Forbes Staff

Amazon Studios Oscar After-Party

Jeff Bezos To Give MacKenzie 25% Of His Amazon Stake, Worth Tens Of Billions, In Divorce

The once and future richest person in the world (once the Bezos divorce finalizes), Bill Gates will happily apply the dispassionate, sharp-elbowed logic that made him one of the most fearsome business minds of the past century—even when the subject, abstractly, is him, as well as the other, suddenly unpopular members of the Three Comma Club. 



“I think it’s fascinating that for the first time in my life people are saying, ‘Okay, should you have billionaires?’ ‘Should you have a wealth tax?’ I think it’s a fine discussion.” 



It’s a discussion that took place yesterday just a block from Trump Tower, home of America’s first-ever billionaire president. “My opinion is that there should be an estate tax and maybe even higher than we have today. Among The Forbes 400, I don’t think we’d get a majority—Warren [Buffett] and I are sort of against interest on that,” says Gates. “So I think there’s plenty of debate about how capital should be taxed, how estates should be taxed.” 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Jeff Bezos Says National Enquirer Owner Tried To Blackmail Him (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/02/08/jeff-bezos-says-national-enquirer-owner-tried-to-blackmail-him/" target="_blank">Jeff Bezos Says National Enquirer Owner Tried To Blackmail Him</a>



But as for the kind of disincentivizing economics lamented by the Beatles in “Taxman” and increasingly championed by America’s far left, Gates remains clear: “The idea that there shouldn’t be billionaires—I’m afraid if you really implemented something like that, that the amount you would gain would be much less than the amount you would lose.” 



In looking at how Gates now deploys tens of billions philanthropically—both the money he and his wife Melinda put into their eponymous foundation, the world’s largest, and that given and pledged by Buffett—it’s critical to understand that perspective. 



Just as Gates views, correctly, that a tax system moving from progressive to confiscatory creates less wealth and innovation overall, he and Melinda examine issues systemically. 



“It’s more evocative to say you’re saving one life than to say you’re saving a million,” he says. “It’s a weird thing.” 



That worldview comes through in the 2019 edition of the Gateses’ annual letter, released this morning. Ostensibly, this year’s letter, which lays out their philanthropic observations and priorities, focuses on nine surprises that have inspired the Gateses to take action. In reality, it’s a valentine to the power of philanthropic investment—the idea of giving not to salve problems, but to solve them. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“I think it’s fascinating that for the first time in my life people are saying, ‘Okay, should you have billionaires?’”</blockquote>



The Gateses write about Becoming A Man (BAM), a group counseling program that helps teenage boys stay in school by channeling their anger. (Bill Gates says he had a “touching experience” sitting in on a group, and even took his turn to vent—about learning that global polio cases were going up.) 



And their “toilet fair” in Beijing, designed to inspire a next-gen toilet that can alleviate sanitation issues. Their fixation on Africa, whose young population promises to transform the global labor force. 



All of these initiatives tell a similar story. They’re about “picking novel ideas” or “off-the-wall theories,” as Gates says, and then proving that the concepts work. “Once you find a solution and want to scale that up, it’s usually government money.” 



That’s a sticking point when dysfunctional Washington can’t enact even the most obvious forward-thinking policies. Take foreign aid, less than 1% of the U.S. budget and an expenditure that, since the Marshall Plan, has consistently generated positive ROI, in terms of creating stability and vital trading markets and stemming deadly diseases. 



While Congress rejected President Trump’s proposed foreign aid cuts, Gates remains worried. “It just can’t be ignored, given the intensity of political debate over domestic issues—and if you have one party saying, ‘Hey, helping foreign countries, that’s kind of a sucker’s deal, does it even benefit us?’” 



This shortsighted nationalist streak is a global issue. “We’re very worried that if Brexit goes poorly, at least for a time, [the U.K.] might not see [foreign aid] as a priority at all,” he says. “If the French domestic stuff gets too painful, will they stay generous?” 



In education, Gates has faced similar headwinds. “You get into political policy things in terms of what you’re trying to achieve. It’s tricky.” The most obvious example here: his previous battle for the Common Core education standards, which critics like Diane Ravitch undermined by terming such efforts a “billionaire boys club.”



READ MORE |<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/02/01/facebook-profits-defy-critics-zuckerberg-vows-company-has-changed/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Facebook Profits Defy Critics – Zuckerberg Vows Company Has Changed (opens in a new tab)">Facebook Profits Defy Critics – Zuckerberg Vows Company Has Changed</a>



“The attack that ‘Why should you even have a say in setting the agenda?’—that has a certain resonance to it,” admits Gates. 



So why should billionaires get to choose what problems we’re solving? 



“Philanthropy is there because the government is not very innovative, doesn’t try risky things and particularly people with a private-sector background—in terms of measurement, picking great teams of people to try out new approaches,” says Gates. “Philanthropy does that.”



Philanthropy, as practiced by the Gateses, also takes risks in the existential terrain political leaders would rather bury their heads in. Bill Gates still worries about nuclear proliferation, an area his partner-in-crime Buffett has championed. He’s been the global leader on the risks around pandemics and also, to a lesser degree, climate change, where his $1 billion Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund makes big bets. 



Artificial intelligence looms on the horizon as the newest threat brought on by innovation. “In the long run,” says Gates, “AI is a tough problem.”



Notably, Gates does not feel that way about social media. Last century’s boy wonder, who faced scrutiny for what the federal government saw as Microsoft’s monopolistic tactics, clearly has empathy for this century’s boy wonder, Mark Zuckerberg, now a lightning rod for Facebook’s role in the erosion of democracy, as most recently outlined by Facebook investor Roger McNamee. 



“I think what Roger [McNamee] has said is completely unfair and kind of outrageous,” says Gates. “They’re blaming Mark for everything. I mean, Trump was not elected because of Facebook. They say ‘filter bubble.’ All these polarization things. … Well, be clear. I get to read whatever I want to read, I get to listen to right-wing radio, I get to listen to Fox News. You kill Facebook and I can still live in my filter bubble. But filter bubble is not just my Facebook feed, so acting like, ‘Hey Mark, wake up someday and solve the filter bubble problem.’ No, Roger McNamee has no practical solution to the filter bubble thing.” 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“They’re blaming Mark for everything. I mean, Trump was not elected because of Facebook.”</blockquote>



(“It’s hard when you’re in this vortex,” adds Gates. “I was in such a vortex once upon a time. A little bit different because mine was more of a court-related thing than the broad view of whether the software was good or not.”) 



Ultimately, Gates, whose net worth, even after large donations to the foundation, approaches $100 billion, views philanthropy as a vital force for good. And he thinks that potential critics—even a loony potential British prime minister—will come around to that view. 



“When I met with Jeremy Corbyn for the first time, does he view me as the billionaire guy who collected more money than he thinks anybody is supposed to collect?” recalls Gates. 



“Or does he view me as the philanthropist who’s helping improve Africa and hopefully learn about education? Fortunately he was very nice, he viewed me as the second. But I’m sure he had to hesitate: ‘This guy is one of those people that maybe there should be none of’.”



-Randall Lane, Forbes Staff

China International Import Expo (CIIE) – Day One

Bill Gates Gets Why People Are Doubting Billionaires—And He Has A Defense (Even For Mark Zuckerberg)

Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon.com Inc, has accused the owner of the National Enquirer of trying to blackmail him with the threat of publishing “intimate photos” he allegedly sent to his girlfriend unless he said in public that the supermarket tabloid’s reporting on him was not politically motivated. 



The accusation, published in a blog post (<a href="https://bit.ly/2WOLuOf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">bit.ly/2WOLuOf</a>), is the latest twist in a weeks-long saga that has brought the world&#8217;s richest person&#8217;s private life into the spotlight and thrusts him deeper into a battle with the leading U.S. tabloid publisher, which has had close links with the president of the United States.



“Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption,” Bezos wrote. “I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out.”



American Media Inc (AMI), the owner of the National Enquirer, did not immediately return a request for comment.



Bezos and his wife announced last month that they were divorcing after 25 years of marriage, following a period of “loving exploration” and trial separation. That same day, the National Enquirer touted it was publishing alleged intimate text messages between Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, a former television anchor whom he was said to be dating.



Shortly after that, Bezos opened an investigation into the leak led by Gavin de Becker, a longtime security consultant and former appointee of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. De Becker proceeded to tell media that the leak was politically motivated.



Bezos, Amazon and the newspaper he owns privately, the Washington Post, have all been targets of attacks on Twitter by U.S. President Donald Trump.



The Washington Post has published many articles critical of the president. It acts as Amazon’s “chief lobbyist,” Trump has said on Twitter, without presenting evidence. Trump called Bezos “Jeff Bozo” in a tweet last month about the National Enquirer’s coverage of his divorce.



“It’s unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy,” Bezos wrote. “President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets.”



The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



In his blog, Bezos cited an email from AMI deputy general counsel, Jon Fine, to a lawyer representing de Becker. In it, AMI proposed a public acknowledgment from Bezos and de Becker that “they have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that (AMI’s) coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces.”



In return for such an acknowledgement, according to the email, AMI offered “not to publish, distribute, share, or describe unpublished texts and photos.”



Bezos said the statement AMI was proposing was false and described the offer as an “extortionate proposal.”



Fine and de Becker could not immediately be reached for comment.



Acting AG Whitaker to testify after subpoena flap



The alleged extortion raises questions among some legal observers about whether AMI and its chief executive David Pecker have violated a cooperation agreement AMI made last year with federal prosecutors in connection with a $150,000 hush-money payment given to Karen McDougal, the Playboy model who claims she had an affair with President Donald Trump.



The payment was made during the 2016 presidential election to influence that election, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). The deal not to prosecute was conditional on AMI not committing another crime, the office said.



A spokesman for the SDNY attorney’s office declined to comment&nbsp;on the matter.



Bezos, who owns more than $120 billion in Amazon stock, said in his blog: “If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?” -Reuters



-Nandita Bose and Jeffrey Dastin

Jeff Bezos Says National Enquirer Owner Tried To Blackmail Him

Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, will divorce after 25 years of marriage, the couple announced on Wednesday morning. They did not provide a reason for their separation.&nbsp;



“We have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends,” they said in the statement, which was posted to Jeff Bezos’ Twitter&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/1083004911380393985" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">page</a>. “If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again.”



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/#39a93201b238" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bezos</a>, worth an estimated $136.2 billion, is the richest person in the world. It is not yet clear how the divorce will impact his net worth, or whether it will affect his stake in Amazon, the e-commerce giant he founded in 1994. Bezos, 54, owns roughly 16% of the business, which comprises more than 95% of his fortune. He also owns the&nbsp;Washington Post&nbsp;and rocket company Blue Origin.



The couple lives primarily in Washington State, which requires divorcing spouses to equitably divide “community property,” including all income generated during a marriage. “It seems very likely, if not 100% a certainty, that whatever Jeff Bezos has earned at Amazon has been community income,” says David Starks, a partner at the Seattle-based law firm McKinley Irvin. He added, however, that through a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, “You can elect to have your assets treated differently, and that’s not uncommon.”



Moreover, &#8220;Awarding a spouse their share of a community asset doesn’t necessarily mean actually transferring the asset to them,&#8221; notes Virginia Onu, an attorney based in Washington. In other words,&nbsp;instead of selling or transferring Amazon shares, Jeff Bezos could offer monetary compensation equivalent to the shares&#8217; fair market value.



If MacKenzie Bezos, 48, does indeed receive half of her husband’s assets, she would be worth more than $68 billion, making her the fifth-richest person in the world. Even a 1% payout would constitute one of the largest divorce settlements in history.



The Bezoses, who have four children, both attended Princeton but met after graduation while working at investment firm D.E. Shaw; she was an associate on his team. They married in 1993 and moved to Seattle in 1994, the same year Amazon was founded.



MacKenzie Bezos boasts a successful career in her own right. A creative writing major at Princeton (she served as a research assistant to Toni Morrison), she won the American Book Award for her first novel,&nbsp;The Testing of Luther Albright, published in 2005. She also founded the anti-bullying organization Bystander Revolution.



A representative for Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



Noah Kirsch 
Forbes Staff 
I mainly cover global wealth and entrepreneurs.



Angel Au-Yeung contributed reporting.&nbsp;

Jeff Bezos, World’s Richest Person, Announces Divorce After 25 Years Of Marriage

From the rapprochement between North and South Korea at the Winter Olympics in January to December’s frantic news agenda, 2018 has had no shortage of surprises. Below are my key picks for the defining moments of the year. 



Elon Musk, Mars, and a roller coaster year for billionaires



On Feb. 6, Elon Musk’s Falcon Heavy rocket&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apps-space-commentary/commentary-spacex-launch-opens-new-frontier-in-space-commerce-idUSKBN1FQ38W">blasted into space</a>&nbsp;from Florida and sent a cherry-red Tesla roadster hurtling toward Mars. It was a powerful statement about the influence and ambition of a new generation of tech billionaires.



Overall, however, 2018 would be a rough year for the group, and Musk was no exception. By July, he was&nbsp;<a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-ceo/tesla-shares-fall-after-ceo-musk-abuses-british-caver-idUKKBN1K62H7">embroiled in a high-profile spat</a>&nbsp;with a British cave rescue diver over a miniature submarine he had hoped would help rescue 12 boys trapped underground in Thailand, just one of a series of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/19/elon-musk-tesla-timeline-difficult-painful-year">increasingly negative headlines</a>.



Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – once touted as a potential U.S. presidential candidate – had scarcely a better year, his firm plagued by its own stream of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/11/15/18097064/facebook-political-reaction-new-york-times-capitol-hill">scandals and political headwinds</a>.



Google, whose chief executive Sundar Pichai became the latest tech chief&nbsp;<a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/12/11/18134984/live-google-ceo-congress-hearing-china-testimony-house-judiciary-committee-censored-search">summoned before Congress</a>, faces a mutiny from some workers on multiple topics, including his dealings with the U.S. and Chinese governments. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/14/jeff-bezos-low-income-people-pay-amazon-workers-better">faces mounting criticism</a>&nbsp;over working conditions and low tax payments.



Yet none of this looks set to stop tech firms from continuing to radically disrupt the world – indeed, many of their founders appear to believe their mission is to do so. Expect these battles to grow in 2019, particularly if new technology such as artificial intelligence and driverless cars accelerate change.



Trump fires advisers, tightens his grip



One billionaire learning his way around the political system in 2018 was U.S. President Donald Trump. After reports of growing frustration with some of his most senior officials, March saw him fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. Both had been viewed as moderating influences on Trump, with successors Mike Pompeo and John Bolton&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apps-bolton-commentary/commentary-with-bolton-trump-shakes-off-generals-restraints-idUSKBN1GZ2W4">perceived as less prone</a>&nbsp;to questioning him.



<a href="https://uk.reuters.com/news/picture/john-kelly-to-leave-white-house-idUKRTX6HPZZ">December&#8217;s departure</a>&nbsp;of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly leaves Defense Secretary James Mattis the key restraining influence.



Overall, Trump seems increasingly keen to trust his own judgment rather than that of establishment-based gatekeepers or Republican insiders.



POTUS woos Kim and Putin. Elsewhere, diplomacy unravels.



In Singapore in June and in Helsinki in July, Trump upset many in his own administration with the warmth of his meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The friendliness of the summits stood in stark contrast to the G7 gathering of Western and Allied leaders in Canada, also in June. There, Trump appeared&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g7-summit/trump-torpedoes-g7-effort-to-ease-trade-spat-threatens-auto-tariffs-idUSKCN1J50H3">more isolated than ever before</a>&nbsp;on topics including climate change, protectionism and relations with Russia. The G7 leaders were unable to agree on a communiqué, with the six non-U.S. members making their own statement independent of Washington.



Events at the G7 pointed to a wider malaise in international diplomacy. World leaders at November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Papua New Guinea&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apps-china-commentary/commentary-can-u-s-china-relations-be-saved-idUSKCN1NO2EJ">also failed to agree</a>&nbsp;on a communiqué, this time due to divisions between China and the United States and its allies over trade.



Military posturing is also on the rise. Russia, China and NATO&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apps-wargames-commentary/commentary-why-china-and-russia-are-obsessed-with-vast-new-war-games-idUSKCN1LE1O6">each held their largest wargames</a>&nbsp;in recent history this summer, while confrontations between jets and warships in the South China Sea and Europe have also increased markedly.



Khashoggi killed as authoritarian states take the gloves off



The world’s authoritarian states appeared at least equally as focused on stifling dissent and opposition. Nowhere was that clearer than in the case of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-saudi-khashoggi-adviser-insight/how-the-man-behind-khashoggi-murder-ran-the-killing-via-skype-idUKKCN1MW2H4">murdered and reportedly dismembered</a>&nbsp;in his own country’s consulate building in Istanbul. Like the suspected Russian nerve agent assassination attempt on a former double agent in the UK town of Salisbury the previous year, the killing sparked international outrage and some diplomatic isolation of Riyadh – but little in the way of convincing apology from those believed responsible.



A string of autocratic governments appear increasingly dismissive of human rights, openly taking draconian action against critics and enemies alike. Russia is continuing its ruthless military campaign against remaining rebel enclaves in Syria, and a Saudi-led coalition has persisted in its war in Yemen – at catastrophic cost to civilians, where millions now face starvation.



China is cracking down on its Muslim Uighur minority, with a U.N. report&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-un/u-n-calls-on-china-to-free-uighurs-from-re-education-camps-idUSKCN1LF1D6">citing estimates Beijing has</a>&nbsp;interned up to one million in “reeducation camps.” Such steps suggest authoritarian rulers like China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Putin may not feel as secure as they appear – or that they believe such brutal tactics are simply necessary to retain their grip.U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea&#8217;s leader Kim Jong Un leave after signing documents that acknowledge the progress of the talks and pledge to keep momentum going, after their summit at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore June 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst



G20 meets as Paris burns



November’s G20 gathering in Argentina was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apps-g20-commentary/commentary-for-g20-leaders-greater-problems-yet-to-come-idUSKBN1O22FW">perhaps the year’s most successful</a>&nbsp;multilateral gathering, with world leaders managing to agree on a largely bland communiqué on reform of global trade. Trump’s meeting with China’s Xi brought some temporary relief from the two countries’ trade war, even as Ukraine tensions and Mueller’s Russia probe made a Trump-Putin meeting impossible. There was still no shortage of disagreements on show, however – and as the leaders met, riots in Paris were grabbing global headlines.



Almost every Western leader in Argentina returned home to an existential political crisis. French President Emmanuel Macron has since bowed to some of the demands of the “yellow vest” protesters, particularly over fuel tax, but that has not been enough to stem the unrest. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has signaled she will shortly leave politics, although she has seen some success in appointing a protegé to lead her party. Trump went back to Washington to face the fallout from former lawyer Michael Cohen’s admission of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/cohen-new-charge-trump-1.4925270">lying to Congress</a>&nbsp;about a Trump Tower project in Moscow; British Prime Minister Theresa May has so far failed to find a Brexit deal she can get through Parliament.



Many of these impasses stem from a much wider crisis in Western nations, with rising wealth gaps and often mounting discontent and hardship among the poorest. Solving those issues will be tough – and more disruption feels inevitable through 2019 and beyond. &#8211; Reuters



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Peter Apps </li></ul>

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Commentary | Five Moments That Defined 2018

After a turbulent few days on the stock market, fueled by rising tension between China and the U.S. over trade agreements as well as hostile attention towards tech companies for its data-use standards, technology shares continued its decline on Tuesday. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.9%.
The fortunes of two of the world&#8217;s biggest tech titans suffered big losses. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/facebook/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Facebook&#8217;s</a> <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-zuckerberg/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mark Zuckerberg</a> closed Tuesday $3.1 billion poorer while Amazon&#8217;s <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jeff Bezos</a>, the richest man on Earth, ended the day down $4.6 billion, at $124.1 billion.
Since March 17, when news first broke about the scandal involving Cambridge Analytica’s improper use of data gathered via Facebook, Zuckerberg’s fortune has fallen by nearly $13 billion. Forbes pegs his net worth at the close of markets Tuesday at $61.3 billion. He’s ranked seventh richest in the world, down from fifth richest as of mid-February.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2018/03/20/latest-pr-nightmare-mark-zuckerbergs-net-worth-drops-5-1-billion-hours/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: After Latest PR Nightmare, Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s Net Worth Drops $5.1 Billion In Hours</a>
Zuckerberg took out full-page ads in several British and American newspapers on Sunday to apologize for the social media giant&#8217;s role in Cambridge Analytica data incident. &#8220;This was a breach of trust, and I&#8217;m sorry we didn&#8217;t do more at the time,&#8221; the ad reads. &#8220;We&#8217;re now taking steps to ensure this doesn&#8217;t happen again.&#8221;
Amazon&#8217;s stock, meanwhile, fell alongside other tech stocks on Tuesday. After closing Monday in the green, Amazon stock dropped 3.7% on Tuesday. Bezos, who founded the e-commerce giant from a Seattle garage in 1994, owns 16% of the company&#8217;s stock.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2018/03/07/forbes-billionaires-2018-meet-richest-people-planet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Forbes Billionaires 2018: Meet The Richest People On The Planet</a>
Bezos overtook <a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/microsoft/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Microsoft</a> co-founder <a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bill Gates</a> as the richest man on Earth in October 2017. He is also the only centi-billionaire on the Forbes billionaire rankings. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Angel Au-Yeung</a>, FORBES STAFF

Zuckerberg And Bezos Fortunes Shed Billions Amid Tech Stock Slide

The gap between the really rich and the merely rich continues to widen, as fortunes soar to new heights. A record 2,208 billionaires made Forbes’ 32 annual ranking of the world’s billionaires. Altogether they are worth a record $9.1 trillion, up 18% from a year ago. The 20 richest people on the planet are worth a staggering $1.2 trillion, a sum roughly equivalent to the annual economic output of Mexico. In aggregate, they may represent less than 1% of total billionaires but their riches amount to 13% of the total fortune of all billionaires worldwide.
<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jeff Bezos</a> is the richest person on the planet and the first centi-billionaire atop our annual ranking. Shares of his e-commerce giant Amazon rose 59%  in 12 months, helping boost his fortune by $39.2 billion. It was the biggest one year gain since Forbes started tracking billionaires in 1987. He easily moved ahead of Microsoft cofounder <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bill Gates</a>, who ceded the top spot for only the sixth time since 1995.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2018/01/10/heres-jeff-bezos-not-truly-richest-person-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Here&#8217;s Why Jeff Bezos Is Not Truly The Richest Man In History</a>
France’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bernard-arnault/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bernard Arnault</a> had the second best year after Bezos. Record results at his luxury goods empire LVMH and a deal to buy out nearly all of Christian Dior helped boost Arnault’s fortune by $30.5 billion. He is the richest European for the first time since 2012 and number four richest in the world.
Two tech entrepreneurs from mainland China climbed into the top 20 for the first time. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/ma-huateng/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ma Huateng</a> (also known as Pony Ma) is Asia’s wealthiest person, ranked number 17 in the world, thanks in part to his firm Tencent’s WeChat, a ubiquitous social-messaging app with nearly 1 billion active users. Tencent also has stakes in Tesla, Snapchat parent Snap and music-streaming service Spotify. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jack-ma/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jack Ma</a>, the 20th richest person, is the chief of another e-commerce giant Alibaba, whose shares increased 76% in a year.
Forbes pinned down 259 newcomers who made their fortunes in everything from tech and aerospace to private aviation and wedding dresses. China has the most new faces with 89, while the U.S. is next with 18. That is helping close the gap between the two nations. Altogether the U.S. has more billionaires than any country in the world with 585, while greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) has 476.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2018/02/01/african-billionaire-fortunes-rise/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: African Billionaire Fortunes Rise</a>
On this year&#8217;s list, the billionaires hail from 72 countries and territories, including the first ever from Hungary and <a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2014/02/01/dealing-corruption-simple-just-say-no/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Zimbabwe</a>. One country not represented: Saudi Arabia. Forbes chose to leave off all 10 Saudis given reports of asset seizures after the Saudi Crown Prince detained some 200 people, including some billionaires, some for as long as three months.
While the vast majority of the world’s billionaires added to their fortunes in the past 12 months, 16% had fortunes that slipped. One notable loser was President <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/donald-trump/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a>, whose fortune fell $400 million since March 2017 to a current $3.1 billion. He is now ranked 766 in the world, down from 544.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2018/03/06/donald-trump-drops-400-million-forbes-billionaires-list/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Donald Trump Drops $400 Million On Forbes Billionaires List</a>
Go <a href="https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> for the full list of all the world&#8217;s billionaires.
Methodology
The Forbes World’s Billionaires list is a snapshot of wealth using stock prices and exchange rates from February 9, 2018. Some people will become richer or poorer within weeks—even days—of publication. For example, Jeff Bezos’ net worth climbed more than $12 billion in the two weeks between our measuring date for stock prices and when this issue went to press. We list individuals rather than multigenerational families who share large fortunes, though we include wealth belonging to a billionaire’s spouse and children if that person is the founder of the fortune. In some cases we list siblings or couples together if the ownership breakdown among them isn’t clear, but here an estimated net worth of $1 billion per person is needed to make the cut. We value a variety of assets, including private companies, real estate, art, yachts and more. We don’t pretend to know each billionaire’s private balance sheet (though some provide it). When documentation isn’t supplied or available, we discount fortunes. For daily updates of net worths, go to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires" target="_blank" rel="noopener">forbes.com/real-time-billionaires</a>. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Luisa Kroll</a>, FORBES STAFF

Tag: Jeff Bezos

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