Jeff Bezos is World’s Richest Person

Bill Gates used to be the richest man in the world, until Jeff Bezos topped him Thursday. Now, the Amazon CEO has earned the respectable title with over $90 billion dollars. Bezos has clearly come a long way considering he started out by selling books online from his garage.

On Thursday, Bezos had a net worth of $90.6 billion after Amazon markets opened, and this fortune made him top Bill Gates who was previously the richest man in the world. Gates, Microsoft Co-founder, has been at the top of the Forbes list for 18 of the past 23 years. After Thursday, Amazon stock unlocked 1.6%, which increased $1.4 billion to Bezos’ total net worth.

All together, Bezos holds 17% of the Amazon company, which is close to 81 million shares as estimated by Forbes. He also has other successful investments, like The Washington Post and the rocket company Blue Origin, which pushed him to the top. These investments were also added into the wealth calculations.

Gates did give a great deal of his money to philanthropy, on the other hand, which might be part of the reason Bezos rose to the top. In fact, Gates used his fortune to create Giving Pledge with Buffett, which was made to inspire billionaires to give at least half of their fortune to charity. Gates has given over $31 billion dollars to charity since the end of 2016, all together.

Ever since 1987, Forbes has been on the hunt for the world’s wealthiest people in America and over international waters. The Amazon CEO is the third American to top international ranks and the seventh person to become the world’s richest person in the world. Gates and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett were the only other people to compete with global ranks.

Both spoke people for Gates and Bezos refused to comment about Bezos climbing to the top of the ladder at this time.