Jeff Bezos is now worth a whopping $200 billion

[Polybius]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by applegrove (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: CNN

Hong Kong (CNN Business)Jeff Bezos was already the world's richest man. Now his net worth has skyrocketed once again, setting another new record.

On Wednesday, the Amazon CEO's wealth reached an estimated $202 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index, as the company's shares soared. That's up about $87 billion since January.

The explosive growth in Bezos' fortune is being driven by his holdings in Amazon (AMZN). The company's stock is up about 25% over the last three months and 86% so far this year, according to data from Refinitiv.

Bezos, who founded Amazon in 1994, keeps breaking records with his wealth. In 2017, he became the richest person on the planet. And last month, his estimated net worth jumped to almost $172 billion, marking a new global high.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/tech/jeff-bezos-net-worth-200-billion-intl-hnk/index.html

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He might eventually become a trillionaire while the bottom 99% get poorer.

[BigmanPigman]

1. MacKenzie Scott, his ex-wife, donated tons, Jeff, not so much...

"In May 2019, she signed the Giving Pledge, a charitable giving campaign in which she willingly committed to give away most her wealth to charity over her lifetime or in her will, though her pledge is legally non-binding. Within a year of joining the Giving Pledge, Scott had donated $1.7 billion to 116 non-profit organizations, with a focus on racial equality, LGBTQ+ equality, democracy, and climate change."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacKenzie_Scott

"The Chronicle estimates that Jeff Bezos, America’s richest man, donated $67 million between 2000 and 2017. If you add the $131 million he gave in 2018, the total is still a whopping 0.12 percent of his net worth. That’s pathetic, and apart from Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the rest of the list isn’t much better than Bezos."
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/11/25/20981946/charity-billionaire-jeff-bezos-bill-gates-wealth-tax

[Warpy]

2. He's more likely to be one of the first to feel the resurrected antitrust laws

I have a very strong feeling those laws are going to have to be resurrected and soon. Monopolies might be efficient in some ways, but they stifle entrepreneurship and innovation by squashing potential competitors.

Bezos will never have to miss a meal. However, Amazon is going to have to be split up, as are oil giants, media giants, retail giants, and many other megacorporations acting like monopolies even though there is technical competition between giants.

Having said that, I still think Bezos is the best thing that could have happened to the WaPo. He bucked the trend of killing off newspapers, hired staff, and put out a reasonably priced digital version for those of us who live in the hinterlands.

Once monopolies get split up, all sorts of interesting things start to happen. If Bell hadn't been split up, we'd still be renting rotary dial phones from them and that would be it.

[yaesu]

3. monopolies do pay off. nt

[DanieRains]

4. And I May Pay More In Income Tax Than Him

Great.

[applegrove]

5. LOCKING

Alert: article at link more than 12 hours old

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/27/tech/jeff-bezos-net-worth-200-billion-intl-hnk/index.html

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