Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is once again the richest person in the world, having surpassed SpaceX founder Elon Musk and LVMH owner Bernard Arnault as of March 4th, 2024 according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Bezos’ total net worth now stands at $200 billion, seeing a $23.4 billion increase year-to-date (YTD). Meanwhile, Musk has seen a $31.3 billion decrease YTD; Arnault’s $18.3 billion increase YTD wasn’t enough to keep his place as the world’s richest man, a title he clinched in April 2023.
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Interestingly, this reshuffling comes just weeks after Bezos sold about $4 billion worth of Amazon stock. Since he made the sale in Florida, his new home as of fall 2023, rather than in his home state of Washington, he potentially saved as much as $288 million due to the former’s lack of state income and stock sales taxes. Speculators think he could save as much as $600 million in subsequent stock sales.
The timing of Bezos’ move made it obvious. In 2022, the state of Washington introduced a new 7 percent capital gains tax on sales of stocks and bonds over $250,000. Since Washington does not have a personal income tax, this would technically be the first time Bezos would have had to pay taxes for selling shares of Amazon and other stock—his source of wealth since 1998. As expected, Bezos has not sold any Amazon shares since the new tax law was passed. As soon as Bezos officially moved to the Miami area, he scheduled a sale of 50 million shares, which is expected to earn him $8.7 billion by January 2025.
The $600 million figure above comes from the sale of 50 million shares he is projected to make in the next couple of years. For comparison, Bezos spent about $500 million on his 417-foot-long mega yacht known as “Koru.”
Bezos recently purchased two mansions on the Indian Creek island located in the Miami area, one for $79 million and the other for $68 million. Bezos also has homes in Washington, DC, New York City, NY, Los Angeles, CA, Maui, HI, and Van Horn, TX. His Texas home, a 300,000-acre ranch, encompasses the launch site for his Blue Origin “New Shephard” rocket.
Shane Devine is a writer covering politics, economics, and culture for Valuetainment. Follow Shane on X (Twitter).
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