Jeff Bezos surpasses Bill Gates as the world's richest person as Amazon shares soar

Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos on Friday unseated fellow tech billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as the richest person in the world.  Bloomberg on Friday put out its daily ranking of the world's richest people - Bloomberg Billionaires Index - which showed that Jeff Bezos added USD10.4 billion to his net worth as Amazon shares rose 13 percent.

At the close of US markets on Friday, Bezos had a net worth of $93.8 billion, $5.1 billion ahead of Bill Gates, the Bloomberg index showed. This year alone, Amazon founder has added $28.5 billion to his fortune. Jeff Bezos with the total net worth of $93.8 billion tops the Bloomberg Billionaires Index while Bill Gates with the net worth of $88.7 billion is at the second spot.
 
This is second time when Jeff Bezos has replaced Bill Gates from the world's richest person list. Earlier in July, Bezos had briefly pushed Microsoft co-founder to second spot after Amazon shares jumped 1.6 per cent in a day.  Bill Gates had been the world's richest person since 2013. Bezos has benefited from the seemingly boundless expansion of Amazon into new markets. The once-bookseller plans to acquire Whole Foods Market Inc, at the same time it is making strides in the fashion business, Hollywood, enterprise computing and general retail from India to Mexico.
 
Earlier this year, Bill Gates donated 64 million of the Microsoft's shares worth US$4.6 billion. Reports suggest that this was the largest gift that Gates made since 2000. Bill gates gave away $16 billion worth of Microsoft shares in 1999 and $5.1 billion a year later, according to calculations by Bloomberg. According to a review of two decades worth of Gates Foundation tax returns and annual reports and regulatory filings, Bill and Melinda Gates have given away about $35 billion of stock and cash since 1994.   
 
In 2011, some analysts observed that Bill Gates didn't lose his title as the world's richest-man, he gave it away by billions into his charitable foundation - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2010, Bill Gates had lost his richest person title to Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim. It was the second time when Gates lost his top position since 1995. But financial analyst believed that it was Bill Gates philanthropy that had cost him richest-man title.