- Jeff Bezos just cashed in $1.8 billion of Amazon stock after a spike in share prices last week.
- The Amazon CEO is worth an estimated $126 billion now, making him the richest person in the world, according to both Forbes and Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
- Bezos is roughly 36% richer than the British monarchy.
- He makes approximately $2,489 per second – more than twice what the median US worker makes in a week.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Jeff Bezos just cashed in $1.8 billion of Amazon stock after a spike in share prices last week.
The Amazon CEO is the richest person on the planet, worth an estimated $126 billion.
Bezos is 36% richer than the British monarchy. He retained his ranking as the world’s richest person even following his divorce from MacKenzie Bezos in 2019. She kept a 4% stake in Amazon worth roughly $35.7 billion, making her the fifth-richest woman in the world.
Though Jeff Bezos’ annual salary is only $81,840, most of his wealth comes from his Amazon shares. The world’s richest man makes $2,489 per second, or more than twice what the median US worker makes in one week, according to Business Insider’s calculations.
Here are 11 mind-blowing facts that show just how wealthy Bezos really is.
1. Bezos is worth $126 billion despite being paid an annual salary of just $81,840, less than what most US representatives take home.
Of course, a large portion of Bezos' wealth is tied to Amazon stock, not his salary.
In 2018, Business Insider calculated how much Bezos actually makes in a year, based on the change in his net worth year-over-year, and found it to be closer to $8.9 million. (Of course, Bezos actually lost $10 billion in 2019, but that was largely due to his divorce.)
It's even more impressive if you break that down to how much Bezos makes every day, every hour, and even every second.
2. Bezos makes $2,489 per second — more than twice what the median US worker makes in one week.
That's $149,353 per minute.
As Business Insider's Hillary Hoffower previously reported, that means that in just one minute, the Amazon chief makes more than three times what the median US worker makes in a year: about $47,000, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
3. After divorcing MacKenzie Bezos and giving up 25% of the Amazon stock owned by the couple, Jeff Bezos retained his ranking as the richest person in the world.
MacKenzie Bezos is now the fifth-richest woman in the world, after David Koch's widow Julia Flesher Koch, L'Oreal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, Walmart heiress Alice Walton, and Mars candy company heiress Jacqueline Mars.
MacKenzie, who was one of Amazon's first employees, is worth an estimated $40.6 billion.
4. With his $126 billion, Bezos has a net worth equivalent to about 27% of the top 100 US college endowments.
The three richest colleges in the US in 2018 based on the size of their endowments were Harvard University, with $38.3 billion, the University of Texas system, with $30.9 billion, and Yale University, with $29.4 billion.
Bezos' fortune is greater than those three universities' endowments combined - with more than $27 billion to spare.
5. Bezos is so rich that an average American spending $1 is similar to Bezos spending about $1.3 million.
The median net worth of an average US household is $97,300. Dividing $126 billion by $97,300 comes to about $1.3 million.
6. The Amazon CEO is about 36% richer than the British monarchy.
The British royal family was worth an estimated $88 billion in 2017, according to Forbes.
7. Bezos is worth almost the equivalent of the entire gross domestic product of Ukraine.
Ukraine's GDP is about $130 billion, according to The World Bank.
8. Bezos' net worth is greater than the GDP of Iceland, Luxembourg, and Estonia — combined.
Iceland's GDP is $25.8 billion, Luxembourg's is $70 billion, and Estonia's is about $30 billion, for a total of just under $126 billion.
9. According to the Social Security Administration, the average American man with a bachelor's degree will earn about $2.2 million in his lifetime. Bezos makes that in just under 15 minutes.
According to the SSA, the average American woman with a bachelor's degree will earn $1.3 million in her lifetime.
Bezos, who has a bachelor's degree from Princeton University, makes $149,353 every minute, according to Business Insider's calculations last year.
10. Even if a moderate wealth tax had been implemented in America almost 40 years ago, Bezos would still be the second-richest person in the world.
At the end of 2018, Bezos was worth $160 billion.
If the US had introduced a moderate wealth tax in 1982 - when the first Forbes 400 data on American billionaires was published - his net worth would now be about half that, or $86.8 billion, according to a recent study published in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.
But even with a mere $86.8 billion fortune, Bezos would still be one of the richest people in the world, outranked only by French businessman Bernard Arnault.
A wealth tax has been a hot topic among the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, with both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren calling for increased taxes on the super-rich.
11. Bezos lost more money in 2019 than almost any other billionaire in the world, but he's still the richest of them all.
The Amazon CEO's net worth took a hit of more than $10 billion in 2019 - but he's still on top.