Jeff Bezos has jumped past Carlos Slim on Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, making him the fourth-richest person in the world thanks, in part, to a 113-percent rally in Amazon.com Inc. this year.
Bezos made the leap by increasing his fortune 103.5 percent in 2015 as Amazon's profits ballooned and its cloud storage business also grew
, according to Bloomberg Business.
"The 51-year-old founder of the world's largest online retailer passed the Mexican telecommunications tycoon Tuesday after Amazon rose $4.19 by the close of trading in New York," the publication wrote. "Bezos commands a fortune of $58.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Slim, who was the world's richest person as recently as May 2013, is now ranked fifth with $57.2 billion."
Bloomberg Business stated that Bezos passed the Koch Brothers, Charles and David, last month on the index to become the third-richest person in the United States. The brothers, who each hold a fortune of $52 billion, control 84 percent of Koch Industries.
"The move caps what has been an incredible year for Bezos' net worth, as investors have piled into Amazon stock as a result of its successful cloud services business,"
Fortune magazine's Chris Matthews wrote in October when Bezos passed the Koch brothers. "[He] has added $22 billion to his net worth in 2015, the most of anyone on Bloomberg's list."
Bezos was ranked No. 15 on Forbes' original 2015 list of the world's billionaires, but has since jumped to No. 5 on the magazine's real-time rankings, behind Slim.
On that list, Bill Gates is ranked No. 1 with $79.2 billion, followed by Amancio Ortega with $74.7 billion, Warren Buffet with $63.3 billion, and Slim with $59.9 billion. Bezos' fortune is listed at $58.9 billion there.
The growth has come despite negative publicity,
such as The New York Times article in August that bashed Amazon's "high-pressure, long-hour work environment."
"[The New York Times article] claims that our intentional approach is to create a soulless, dystopian workplace where no fun is had and no laughter heard," Bezos wrote to employees after The Times series ran.
"I don't recognize this Amazon and I very much hope you don't, either. More broadly, I don't think any company adopting the approach portrayed could survive, much less thrive, in today's highly competitive tech hiring market."
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