Amazon founder Jeff Bezos makes billions as shares soar

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during his news conference at the National Press Club in Washington this month. Photo / AP

He's already the wealthiest person on the planet – but yesterday, Jeff Bezos got a whole lot richer.

And he did it within minutes.

The Amazon founder grew his staggering wealth by around US$13.2 billion in just 15 minutes on Thursday after his company's shares spiked.

Amazon shares rose dramatically – by 12 per cent – following an impressive Christmas holiday sales period coupled with a successful quarter, taking them to $US12000 a share.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates his current net worth to be around US$129.5 billion and beating rival Bill Gates.

The company confirmed a profit in the final quarter of 2019 of $3.3 billion, a sum that smashed expectations.

Amazon also increased revenue by 21 per cent to $87.4 billion, and has now managed to lure a record 150 million Prime members globally – a 50 per cent jump from 2018, when Amazon last revealed the number of Prime members on the books.

The company is committed to slashing delivery times for Prime members – a move that it hopes will ramp up subscriptions even further.

"Prime membership continues to get better for customers year after year. And customers are responding — more people joined Prime this quarter than ever before, and we now have over 150 million paid Prime members around the world," Bezos said in a statement.

"We've made Prime delivery faster — the number of items delivered to US customers with Prime's free one-day and same-day delivery more than quadrupled this quarter compared to last year.

"Members now have free two-hour grocery delivery from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market in more than 2000 US cities and towns. Prime members watched double the hours of original movies and TV shows on Prime Video this quarter compared to last year, and Amazon Originals received a record 88 nominations and 26 wins at major awards shows."

Bezos also took the opportunity to thank all members of the Amazon team "for their dedicated work to build, innovate, and deliver for customers this holiday."

The 56-year-old father of four owns around 12 per cent of his online retailer company's outstanding stock, which is where most of his riches comes from.

The good news comes in the midst of a turbulent time for Bezos, who finalised his divorce from wife of 25 years MacKezie Bezos in mid-2019, with the couple reaching a $38 billion settlement.

Bezos, who is now dating US news anchor Lauren Sanchez, also made headlines this month over allegations his phone was hacked in 2018 after he received a WhatsApp message from Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

And earlier this month, Bezos announced Amazon was donating A$1 million and some of its technology to Australia's bushfire relief.

"Our hearts go out to all Australians as they cope with these devastating bushfires. Amazon is donating 1 million AU dollars in needed provisions and services," Bezos wrote in a tweet announcing the donation.

the richest man on earth is donating roughly the same amount as three women raised in 12 hours selling nudes on twitter pic.twitter.com/jfH9F2jbKY

— Jason Koebler (@jason_koebler) January 12, 2020

However, it sparked widespread criticism, with many social media users arguing the world's richest man could have stumped up more cash for the cause.