Jeff Bezos is an American businessman, philanthropist, and space enthusiast with a net worth of $226 billion. He became rich by founding Amazon.com and has held several positions, including being the former CEO and the current president and chairman of the board.
In July 2017, he became wealthier than Bill Gates for the first time. From October 2017 to January 2021, he was the richest person in the world without interruption. In March 2024, he regained the title of the richest person, surpassing Elon Musk in net worth.
Jeff owns 55 million shares of Amazon, which is about 12% of the total outstanding shares, according to the most recent SEC filing. At one point, he owned 80 million shares. During his divorce settlement with MacKenzie Bezos in April 2019, he gave her 19.7 million shares, which were worth $36 billion at that time.
This reduced his net worth from $150 billion to $114 billion for a period. Jeff was also an early investor in Google and now owns at least $1 billion in shares of Alphabet Inc.
For most of the 2000s, Jeff wasn’t in the top 10 or 20 richest people in the world. However, starting in late 2014, Amazon’s stock began to rise. By July 2015, his net worth reached $50 billion, and in less than two years, it had doubled.
On July 27, 2017, he passed Bill Gates to become the richest person in the world. By September 2018, Amazon’s market value reached $1 trillion, and at that time, he still owned 80 million shares, increasing his net worth to a record $170 billion.
The Start
He left his finance job in 1994 to start an online bookstore. While driving across the country, he came up with the idea for the Amazon business plan. When Amazon went public in 1998, his net worth rose past $12 billion. However, after the dotcom bubble burst, it fell to $2 billion.
By 2015, his net worth reached over $50 billion for the first time. In 2018, it surpassed the $100 billion mark. He also invested in Google before its initial public offering, which is now worth about $1 billion.
When he and MacKenzie announced their split, his net worth was $136 billion. MacKenzie received 20 million Amazon shares and became the richest woman in the world.
If they had stayed together, Jeff’s net worth could have easily gone past $250 billion. He owns The Washington Post and has $300 million in property in Beverly Hills, along with $60 million in Washington.
To date, he has sold at least $70 billion worth of Amazon shares and spends $1 billion a year to fund his space venture, Blue Origin. By July 2021, his net worth reached $211 billion.
Jeff Bezos (Credits: Getty Images)Was Jeff Bezos Ever the Richest Person of All Time?
When you compare Jeff’s highest net worth of $200 billion with our list of the richest people ever, adjusted for inflation, he doesn’t even make the top 10. That $200 billion would actually place him as the 11th largest fortune ever held by one person (after adjusting for inflation).
To give some context, when oil magnate John D. Rockefeller passed away, his wealth was around $340 billion when adjusted for inflation.
Could Jeff Bezos Become a Trillionaire?
It’s all about possibilities! But becoming a trillionaire seems quite ambitious if he’s only relying on his Amazon stocks. With 12% of Amazon’s shares, Jeff’s net worth is about $120 billion for every $1 trillion in market value. So, to reach the trillionaire mark just from his Amazon shares, the company would have to reach a market cap of over $8.3 trillion.
Early Life
Jeff Bezos was born on January 12, 1964, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His mother was only 17 when she had him, and his father ran a bike shop. After some time, she divorced Jeff’s biological father and married a Cuban immigrant named Miguel Bezos when Jeff was four. Miguel adopted Jeff, and that’s when Jeff’s last name changed from Jorgenson to Bezos.
The family then moved to Houston, where Miguel found a job as an engineer at Exxon. They also became closer to Jeff’s grandparents, who owned a cattle ranch south of San Antonio. Interestingly, Jeff’s grandmother, Mattie Louise Gise, was a first cousin of country music star George Strait.
As a child in Texas, Jeff turned his parents’ garage into a lab for his science experiments. He spent his summers working on his grandparents’ ranch, which he later said helped shape his strong work ethic. Eventually, he bought the ranch and expanded it from 25,000 to 300,000 acres.
Jeff Bezos (Credits: Getty Images)The family moved to Miami just as Jeff started high school. During high school, he worked as a short-order cook at McDonald’s. He did well in school, becoming the valedictorian and a National Merit Scholar. In his speech as valedictorian, he shared his vision of humanity eventually colonizing space.
Jeff went on to attend Princeton University, originally planning to study physics, but his interest in computers led him to change his focus. He graduated summa cum laude with a 4.2 GPA and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, earning a Bachelor of Science in computer science and electrical engineering.
After college, Jeff joined a financial tech company called Fitel. He later moved into the banking sector, getting a product management role at Bankers Trust. In 1990, he became a financial analyst at D. E. Shaw & Co., a new hedge fund that used mathematical modeling to gain significant market profits.
Jeff stayed with D.E. Shaw until 1994, and by then, he had risen to the role of fourth senior vice president at the company. He was just 30 years old at the time.
Amazon
A year before starting Amazon, Jeff became very interested in the early days of the internet. He thought about selling things online and decided to begin with books. While driving from New York to Seattle, he came up with the business plan for Amazon. He officially started the company in 1994, working from his garage.
Other Accomplishments
In 2008, Bezos was given an honorary doctorate in Science and Technology from Carnegie Mellon University. Earlier, in 1999, he was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year.
Then, in 2000, he launched Blue Origin, a startup focused on human spaceflight, driven by his passion for space exploration. Blue Origin’s goal is to create space hotels, amusement parks, and even colonies or small cities for millions of people orbiting Earth.
The company kept a low profile for a few years and was only publicly recognized in 2006 when it bought a large piece of land in west Texas for a launch and testing site. In 2013, Bezos discussed commercial spaceflight with Richard Branson, the billionaire behind Virgin Group, and that same year, he also acquired The Washington Post.
Jeff Bezos (Credits: Getty Images)Real Estate And Other Toys
For about thirty years, Jeff lived in Seattle, Washington. In November 2023, he shared that he decided to move to Miami full-time. Just two months before, he spent a huge $150 million on two side-by-side properties on a private island called Indian Creek Village, often called the “Billionaire Bunker.” The rumor is that he plans to demolish both properties to build a large new mansion.
By April 2024, it was revealed that Jeff had bought a third mansion on Indian Creek, paying $90 million for a six-bedroom house where he plans to stay while he demolishes the other two to build an even bigger estate.
Back in 2007, Jeff and MacKenzie bought a mansion on two prime acres in Beverly Hills for $24.5 million. Then in 2018, they purchased the neighboring home for $12.9 million. After their divorce in 2019, MacKenzie received the combined property. In August 2022, she announced that she had donated both homes to the California Community Foundation, with the combined value estimated to be around $55 million at the time of the donation.
On February 12, 2020, it was revealed that Jeff spent a huge $255 million on two properties in Beverly Hills. The first one, the Jack L. Warner estate, cost him $165 million. This beautiful estate covers 10 acres in the heart of Beverly Hills and includes a main house that is 13,600 square feet.
The previous owner was entertainment mogul David Geffen, who had bought it in 1990 for $47.5 million.
Jeff Bezos and fiancée Lauren Sanchez (Credits: Getty Images)The second property Jeff was said to have bought in February 2020 was a 120-acre vacant hilltop called Enchanted Hill. This land was sold by the estate of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who purchased it in 1997 for $20 million.
While the land is mostly covered in weeds, it has a 1.5-mile driveway and a well-maintained bluff at the top. However, just a month after the news broke, the deal fell through. In the end, Jeff’s big real estate purchase in February 2020 was just the $165 million Jack L. Warner estate.
Other real estate assets:
A $23 million mansion in Washington D.C. was bought in 2018.
It used to be a museum and has two buildings with a total of 27,000 square feet of living space.
There are also 300,000 acres in Texas, which include several ranches, plus another 100,000 acres spread across the country.
In Manhattan, there are three units at 25 Central Park West.
Additionally, there’s a $10 million 5-acre property in Medina, Washington, purchased in 1999, and a $50 million mansion right next door in Medina, acquired in 2005.
Net Worth Details And History
Over the past two decades, since Amazon went public, Bezos has sold at least $70 billion in shares. He usually sells about $1 billion worth of stock each year as part of a planned selling strategy.
When Amazon first went public, its market cap was only $300 million. Jeff owned 40% of the company, which made his net worth about $120 million (before taxes). Within a year, his net worth grew to a billion dollars. During the peak of the dotcom boom, his wealth reached over $10 billion.
However, after the bubble burst, Amazon’s stock fell to a low of $5 per share in October 2001, and Jeff’s net worth dropped to between $1 and $2 billion.
If you had the foresight to invest $10,000 in Amazon shares back in October 2001, you would now have more than $15 million, not even counting any dividends.
Jeff Bezos (Credits: Getty Images)Net Worth Milestones
In May 1997, the company started with a value of $120 million on its IPO day. By June 1998, it reached $1 billion for the first time. By June 1999, the value jumped to $10 billion. Then in July 2015, it hit $50 billion. In January 2018, it doubled to $100 billion, and by July 2018, it reached $150 billion.
Just a few months later, in September 2018, it went up to $170 billion.
In January 2019, Jeff announced he was divorcing MacKenzie after 25 years, which was sure to affect his $150 billion fortune. On April 4, 2019, they revealed they had reached a friendly agreement for their divorce, with MacKenzie receiving $36 billion in Amazon stock.
Jeff kept 75% of his shares and kept voting control over MacKenzie’s. She didn’t own any part of The Washington Post or Jeff’s space company, Blue Origin. The details about how they split their homes and jets remain unclear. After the announcement, Jeff’s net worth dropped to $114 billion.
By March 9, 2020, it was at $111 billion, then jumped to $172 billion by July 1, 2020. Just days later, on July 9, it increased to $190 billion, and by August 26, 2020, it reached $202 billion. However, by December 2022, it had dropped to $117 billion, and in January 2023, it went down to $107 billion.
Jeff became a billionaire just three years after starting in 1995. It took him two decades to reach $50 billion, but he managed to gain another $50 billion in just 2.5 years, bringing his total to $100 billion. Then, in just seven months, he added another $50 billion, pushing his total to $150 billion. But just like that, he lost $36 billion with one decision.
Jeff Bezos is a prime example of entrepreneurial skill and forward-thinking leadership. He started Amazon in a garage and turned it into one of the most valuable companies in the world, showing his ability to innovate and persevere. Bezos’ interests go beyond retail, including space exploration with Blue Origin, media with The Washington Post, and major philanthropic projects.
His strategic decisions have changed e-commerce, cloud computing, and logistics around the globe. Despite challenges, his ability to adjust and focus on long-term objectives highlights his incredible success. Bezos motivates others by showing how bold dreams, supported by hard work, can transform industries and push humanity toward new possibilities.