Jeff Bezos Topples Elon Musk to Reclaim Title of World’s Richest Man

Jeff Bezos has dethroned Elon Musk to reclaim his title as the world’s richest man.

The Amazon founder’s net worth currently stands at $200 billion, topping the Tesla chief’s $198 billion, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed on Tuesday.

Bezos has gained $23 billion so far in 2024, while Musk has lost about $31 billion, according to the index.

The billionaires’ gains and losses in wealth closely tracked the stock market fortunes of Amazon and Tesla, which count their founders as their biggest shareholders.

Amazon’s share price has surged by more than 18 percent this year, while Tesla’s has dropped by 24 percent.

Despite selling $8.5 billion worth of Amazon shares earlier this month, Bezos remains the biggest shareholder in the e-commerce giant with a 9.56 percent stake.

Musk has an equity stake in Tesla of about 20 percent. In January, a judge in the United States struck down a Tesla pay package for Musk valued at up to $55.8 billion after finding that the process for approving his remuneration was deeply flawed.

Bezos, Musk, and Arnault jockeyed for the top in recent years

Musk, who also runs X and SpaceX, rose to the top of the list of the world’s wealthiest in May after toppling Bernard Arnault, the chairman and CEO of luxury goods company LVMH, who now ranks third with $197 billion.

In May 2023, Arnault had $11.2 billion wiped away from his fortune in one day over concerns that a softening US economy would dampen demand for luxury goods.

The founder of LVMH—whose offerings include Louis Vuitton handbags, Moet & Chandon champagne, and Christian Dior gowns—had seen his wealth balloon for most of 2023 as share prices of European luxury companies surged.

Bezos, Musk, and Arnault have jockeyed for the top spot in recent years in the ranking, which is based on fluctuations in the stock market and other economic data.

Musk and Arnault still hold plenty of wealth, as has been the case since 2020. The net worth of the five wealthiest people on earth has skyrocketed 114 percent to a total of $869 billion after taking inflation into account, according to Oxfam’s annual inequality report. That is a rate equivalent to about $14 million per hour.

“We’re witnessing the beginnings of a decade of division, with billions of people shouldering the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation and war, while billionaires’ fortunes boom,” Oxfam International interim executive director, Amitabh Behar, wrote in the report.

“This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else,” he added.

The research conducted by Oxfam shows that while rich countries in the Global North represent just 21 percent of the world’s population, they hold 69 percent of global wealth and are home to 74 percent of the world’s billionaire wealth.

Share ownership overwhelmingly benefits the richest. The wealthiest one percent own forty-three percent of all global financial assets.