Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos's wealth alone is comparable to countries such as Morocco, Ukraine and Kuwait. Brent Lewis / Getty
Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos's wealth alone is comparable to countries such as Morocco, Ukraine and Kuwait. Brent Lewis / Getty

Bezos dethrones Gates as world's richest person



A post-earnings surge in Amazon.com shares Friday pushed Jeff Bezos to the top of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index for the first time, vaulting him ahead of Bill Gates who had held the top spot as the richest person on Earth for more than four years.

The founder and chief executive officer of the retail juggernaut added US$10.4 billion to his net worth as Amazon shares rose 13 per cent, the most in two and a half years, a day after the company reported quarterly sales and profit that surpassed analysts’ estimates. Profit for the third quarter was $256 million, up slightly from $252m a year ago while revenue jumped 34 per cent to $43.7bn.

Mr Bezos' wealth briefly eclipsed that of Gates, the Microsoft  co-founder, on an intraday basis on July 27, but Amazon shares ended that day lower, leaving Mr Bezos in second.

Microsoft reported net income of $6.58bn, or 84 cents per share, up from $5.67bn, or 72 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose 12 per cent to $24.54bn.

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Read more:

Battle hots up to secure Amazon's $5bn new HQ

Amazon unit's India stake purchase to boost Shoppers Stop sales

Bill Gates donates $4.6bn to charity

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At the close of US markets Friday, Mr Bezos had a net worth of $93.8bn, $5.1bn ahead of Mr Gates on the Bloomberg index, a daily ranking of the world’s 500 richest people. Mr Gates had been the world’s richest person since 2013.

Mr Bezos, 53, has added $28.5bn to his fortune this year. Mr Gates’ net worth has climbed by $6.3bn since year-end, even after he donated $4.6bn of Microsoft stock to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in August.

Mr Gates has given away almost 700 million Microsoft shares and $2.9bn of cash and other assets since 1996, according to an analysis of his publicly disclosed giving. He would be worth about $15bn if he had not made the donations.

Election pledges on migration

CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections" 

SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom" 

In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe

Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010

Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille

Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm

Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year

Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”

Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners

TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013 

Isle of Dogs

Director: Wes Anderson

Starring: Bryan Cranston, Liev Schreiber, Ed Norton, Greta Gerwig, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson

Three stars

Bharatanatyam

A ancient classical dance from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Intricate footwork and expressions are used to denote spiritual stories and ideas.

NO OTHER LAND

Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal

Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham

Rating: 3.5/5

Company%20profile
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RESULT

Chelsea 2

Willian 13'

Ross Barkley 64'

Liverpool 0

The major Hashd factions linked to Iran:

Badr Organisation: Seen as the most militarily capable faction in the Hashd. Iraqi Shiite exiles opposed to Saddam Hussein set up the group in Tehran in the early 1980s as the Badr Corps under the supervision of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The militia exalts Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei but intermittently cooperated with the US military.

Saraya Al Salam (Peace Brigade): Comprised of former members of the officially defunct Mahdi Army, a militia that was commanded by Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr and fought US and Iraqi government and other forces between 2004 and 2008. As part of a political overhaul aimed as casting Mr Al Sadr as a more nationalist and less sectarian figure, the cleric formed Saraya Al Salam in 2014. The group’s relations with Iran has been volatile.

Kataeb Hezbollah: The group, which is fighting on behalf of the Bashar Al Assad government in Syria, traces its origins to attacks on US forces in Iraq in 2004 and adopts a tough stance against Washington, calling the United States “the enemy of humanity”.

Asaeb Ahl Al Haq: An offshoot of the Mahdi Army active in Syria. Asaeb Ahl Al Haq’s leader Qais al Khazali was a student of Mr Al Moqtada’s late father Mohammed Sadeq Al Sadr, a prominent Shiite cleric who was killed during Saddam Hussein’s rule.

Harakat Hezbollah Al Nujaba: Formed in 2013 to fight alongside Mr Al Assad’s loyalists in Syria before joining the Hashd. The group is seen as among the most ideological and sectarian-driven Hashd militias in Syria and is the major recruiter of foreign fighters to Syria.

Saraya Al Khorasani:  The ICRG formed Saraya Al Khorasani in the mid-1990s and the group is seen as the most ideologically attached to Iran among Tehran’s satellites in Iraq.

(Source: The Wilson Centre, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation)

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
 
Started: 2021
 
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
 
Based: Tunisia 
 
Sector: Water technology 
 
Number of staff: 22 
 
Investment raised: $4 million