Jeff Bezos Just Lost His Status as the World's Richest Man

Jeff Bezos might need to consider taking his lunch to work and cutting back on his cable packages, as the Amazon founder and CEO has officially lost the title of World’s Richest Man to Bill Gates.

As reported by Bloomberg, shares of Amazon stumbled yesterday, dropping 8.1% to $1,637, leaving Bezos with a net worth of $102.8 billion. That sounds like a lot, sure, but it actually puts him almost $5 billion behind Gates on the list of world's richest people, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Jeff Bezos had previously stolen the crown from the Microsoft co-founder in October 2017, in what was then considered a bit of a shocking upset. Bill Gates has been the richest guy in the world in the public imagination for seemingly forever, or at least the ‘mid 90s.

So what’s with the drop? One year ago, Bezos was roughly $70 billion richer than anyone else on earth, including Gates.

First off, Amazon is investing heavily in shaving a day off of their two-day Prime delivery, which isn’t cheap. The costs of Amazon Prime's one-day delivery push will total $1.5 billion during the holiday quarter. These hefty costs seem to have left investors soured a bit on Amazon.

Secondly, well, love ain’t cheap, and neither is divorce. Bezos and his now ex MacKenzie announced their separation in January, and she received a quarter of Amazon holdings in July. As Bloomberg noted, as of Thursday MacKenzie Bezos's net worth dropped “to $32.9 billion with Amazon shares priced at $1,637, and she remains the world’s fourth-richest woman.”

For his part, Microsoft stock has soared 38% this year, bringing Bill Gates' net worth up to $107.5 billion. Gates famously only has 1% stake in Microsoft, with the rest of his fortune made from investments and stock trading. It’s also highly likely he never would have lost the top spot were it not for the more than $35 billion he’s donated to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation since 1994.