Jeff Bezos with new partner Lauren Sanchez. Photo / File
Jeff Bezos with new partner Lauren Sanchez. Photo / File
Three years ago, Jeff Bezos was struggling to retain his title as the world's richest man but in recent months, booming demand for Amazon's services has sent his wealth sky-rocketing.
At US$143 billion (NZ$238b), his fortune now dwarfs that of rivals. The 56-year-old is one third wealthier than Bill Gates with US$106bn. Mark Zuckerberg, in third place, has a fortune of US$78bn.
Amazon's dizzying success – which has accelerated under lockdown – has prompted some US publications to question whether the Amazon founder could one day become the world's first trillionaire.
"The Jeff Bezos Wealth Surge is an unprecedented dynamic in the history of modern markets," researchers from the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) wrote last month. "Tracking Bezos' wealth requires a real-time hour-by-hour tracker."
That is no exaggeration. Since the start of the year, his net wealth has spurted by US$28bn, equal to the GDP of Honduras, according to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index.
Revenues for the first three months of the year hit US$75.5bn and shares in the business are up more than 40pc since the middle of March.
Amazon has been perfectly for the pandemic, spanning delivery, entertainment and cloud computing – all areas that have seen demand rising.
"Covid-19 in a Twilight Zone way has almost put more gasoline in the growth engine for Amazon on both sides of its business," agrees Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush. "On e-commerce, it's enabled them to further flex their muscles and gain more and more share as a consumer artery, and in the cloud business, more companies are moving to the cloud which has disproportionately benefited AWS.
Amazon has seen huge growth during the crisis. Image / Telegraph
"Amazon from a growth perspective is really seeing a step-up, and from an investing point of view, the strong are getting stronger."
Bezos, who founded Amazon in 1994, may still fall a long way short of the US$1 trillion mark – but analysts at Comparisun claim bridging the gap may not be as difficult as it seems. Most of his wealth is held in Amazon shares and considering the steady rise in their value, analysts believe his current stake of about 11pc could hit the US$1000bn milestone within seven years.
He is one of "only eleven who realistically have a chance of becoming a trillionaire during their lifetime, based on their recent rate of wealth growth".
Naturally, forecasts like this should probably be taken a pinch of salt.
One factor likely to count against him is his personal life. Under Bezos's divorce settlement last year, a large chunk of his historic stake in Amazon was handed to his ex-wife Mackenzie.
And while Amazon's business success is obvious, the company faces difficult questions around its workforce. Workers in Amazon warehouses earn an hourly rate of US$17 in the US and £12.50 in the UK.
"Jeff Bezos is expected to become the first trillionaire as he consolidates the retail market during coronavirus. Now Amazon is telling its workers (who have faced significant risk) that it'll be ending their hazard pay at the end of May! Atrocious greed," wrote Democrat Bonnie Colesman.
The company has responded by saying it is "working closely with health authorities to respond proactively, ensuring we can continue to serve communities while taking care of our associates and teams".
Such scrutiny, of Amazon and Bezos, might seem more intense than it is for other companies. On one level, this is clearly down to the size of its workforce, which spans across countries, but on another, it comes down to the huge gap between Bezos and his workers.
