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This CEO Made $6 Billion in 20 Minutes Thursday

By:
Kerry Close
3 min read
Jeff Bezos made $6 billion Thursday after a strong earnings report from Amazon. - Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images
Jeff Bezos made $6 billion Thursday after a strong earnings report from Amazon. Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images

If you think you had a good day Thursday, but Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had a really good Thursday: His net worth rose $6 billion in the span of just 20 minutes.

On the heels of a stellar Amazon earnings report, the tech giant executive saw the value of his 82.9 million shares in the company increase by more than 10% in after-hours trading, Fast Company reported. The jump made Bezos the fifth-richest man in the world, with a net worth of $53.7 billion. For a brief time Thursday, his net worth increased as high as $60 billion, surpassing Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim, who lost nearly $3.5 billion that afternoon, Vanity Fair reported.

Bezos—along with fellow ultra-rich businessmen Slim, Mark Zuckerberg and the Koch brothers—have been swapping spots in the billionaire rankings for the past several months. Their flip-flopping is likely a result of fluctuations in the broader stock market, in particular with volatile tech company earnings. (Not every big tech player has been as hot as Amazon and Facebook: Apple, Google, Intel, and Microsoft all reported lackluster quarters).

Earlier this year, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg also saw his net worth jump by $6 billion in a day, as his company reported fourth-quarter earnings that far exceeded analyst expectations. The increase allowed him to leap over the Koch brothers, whose fortune remains tied to the flagging oil market, and Bezos, whose company saw less impressive earnings that quarter, into the fourth-place spot.

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Now, Amazon's impressive earnings have catapulted Bezos ahead of the Kochs and Zuckerberg, though as of Friday morning, Bezos is back to trailing behind Slim in terms of net worth. Amazon reported a fourth-straight profit-grossing quarter this week, with revenue up 28% from last year. The company's success can be in part attributed to its profitable cloud computing business, which has become essential for companies like Netflix that host their computing power on Amazon's servers.

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