Elon Musk ousted
Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world again
March 5, 2024, 11:04 a.m
Listen to article
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
Jeff Bezos is back at the top of the world’s richest people rankings. According to the Bloomberg ranking, the Amazon founder is overtaking Tesla billionaire Elon Musk with around $200 billion. His narrow lead comes from stock values. However, if he were to sell, Bezos would lose his pole.
Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world again. The Amazon founder has overtaken Elon Musk and is back at the top of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index for the first time since fall 2021. Bezos’ net worth was $200 billion (184 billion euros) on Monday, according to Bloomberg. Musk’s personal fortune was $198 billion and that of LVMH boss Bernard Arnault was $197 billion. Musk, Arnault and Bezos have alternated in recent years at the top of the rankings, which measure personal wealth based on changes in capital markets, the economy and other reports.
According to Bloomberg, his wealth growth resulted primarily from the good development of the Amazon share price. If Bezos were to sell his shares, he would lose first place because of the taxes that would be due, as the Wall Street Journal reported. Musk’s fortune, on the other hand, had recently decreased by around $30 billion due to a brief fall at Tesla. He also lost 56 billion euros because a judge in the US state of Delaware declared a Tesla stock compensation plan that had been granted to him in 2018 null and void at the end of January.
Bezos amassed much of his wealth with the e-commerce giant Amazon, which he founded in his Seattle garage in 1994. He also founded the space company Blue Origin and bought the Washington Post for $250 million. In mid-February, Bezos once again parted with a share package worth billions.
He sold another 12 million Amazon shares worth $2.08 billion, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The previous weekend it became known that Bezos had sold shares in the same volume at the beginning of February. Nevertheless, he remains the largest individual shareholder in the company he founded in 1994.
“Musk doesn’t pay his bills”
Meanwhile, four former top Twitter managers are confronting Musk with a lawsuit. They are demanding $128 million in unpaid severance pay from the billionaire. The executives, former CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal, former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and former general counsel Sean Edgett, filed the lawsuit in California federal court, expanding a legal battle that began before Musk’s 44th birthday The billion-dollar takeover of Twitter began in October 2022.
According to the lawsuit, as the takeover was nearing completion, Musk tried to back out but failed and then made up a reason to fire the four executives so he wouldn’t have to pay them severance. “Under Musk’s control, Twitter has become a rogue state that preys on employees, landlords, vendors and others,” the lawsuit says.
“Musk doesn’t pay his bills, believes the rules don’t apply to him, and uses his wealth and power to trample on anyone who disagrees with him,” the lawsuit continues. A lawyer who represented Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk, who renamed Twitter to The company did not pay severance or benefits to several other former executives, the lawsuit says.
“Musk’s refusal to pay Plaintiffs their severance pay is part of a larger pattern of refusing to pay Twitter’s former employees the severance pay and other compensation to which they are entitled,” the lawsuit says.