Jeff Bezos is now the richest person in the world

Amazon and Jeff Bezos have once again shown that not all businesses are suffering in these times. Both he and his business are major beneficiaries of the coronavirus pandemic, hitting all-time highs in both market capitalization and net worth.

Shares of Amazon and Behemoth, a cloud-computing service founded by Bezos 26 years ago, both hit all-time highs, causing the company’s market capitalization to hit $1.54 trillion. The new numbers make Bezos—who owns 11% of the company— richer with a record-breaking net worth of $182.6 billion. Bezos’ net worth currently standards as the highest record in Forbes’ history of tracking billionaires’ net worth. This is good news for Amazon’s shareholders and investors.

Amazon (AMZN) also experienced its fair share of falling stock prices after its stock fell by 15% in the first three weeks in the month of March, causing the e-commerce retailer to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. By April, the company stock regained stamina and skyrocketed more than 80% since its March low point. The coronavirus pandemic generated more traffic, sales, and revenues for the e-commerce giant as many consumers had to shop for goods online rather than in physical stores.

Bezos has maintained his title as the world’s richest person for three consecutive years. He first got the title in July 2017, but later reversed after Amazon reported a miss in its second-quarter earning the same day he was named as the world’s richest man. By October that same year, Bezos reclaimed his lost title following a strong third-quarter earnings report. By October 2018, he was again named the richest person in the world with a net worth of $160 billion. Now, Bezos is $182.6 billion rich, beating Microsoft founder Bill Gates by $70.2 billion.

During Bezos’ divorce filing from his ex-wife McKenzie, he filed a quarter of his Amazon stake to her as a divorce settlement. McKenzie is currently worth $59.8 billion, making her the second richest woman in the world. She also played a role in founding Amazon as she was the one who negotiated the company’s first freight contract as well as handled the company’s accounting. If the couple were still together and Bezos hadn’t signed off a portion of his Amazon stake as a divorce settlement, he would have been currently worth $240 billion.

Bezos isn’t the only beneficiary of the coronavirus pandemic as other billionaires like Tesla’s Elon Musk and Zoom’s Eric Yuan. Both billionaires have seen their net worth grow by $2 billion between March and June