News Mar 30, 2017 08:39 PM EDT

Jeff Bezos becomes second richest in the world surpassing Warren Buffett, Amancio Ortega

By April Kirstin Chua

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has surpassed Warren Buffett and Amancio Ortega to become the second richest person in the world. The latest tally shows Bezos is now worth $75.6 billion, which is more than $700 million compared to Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s Buffet and just $1.3 billion above than Europe's richest Ortega.

The report comes after Amazon announced plans to buy Dubai-based online retailer Souq.com with technology experts describing the acquisition as a coming-of-age of the Middle East e-commerce sector. Jeff Bezos added $1.5 billion to his fortune after Amazon rose to $18.32 on Wednesday. Amazon is on fire lately with its stocks rising more than 16 percent over the last year. Previously, Barclay's analyst forecasted that it will likely to be one of the first trillion-dollar market cap companies.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Jeff Bezos gained $10.2 billion this year to his wealth. In addition, Bezos also acquired $7 billion since the global equities rally after Donald Trump's election to the presidency in November. This is the third biggest gain as marked by Bloomberg following Chinese billionaire Wang Wei's $18.4 billion gain and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's $11.4 billion.

Notably, Amazon is not the only business that keeps Jeff Bezos busy and on a float.  Also owns space exploration company and SpaceX rival, Blue Origin. The goal of the company is to let people experience space by taking them on space tourism trips. It also aims to deliver satellites into orbit for corporate climates. As of this date, Blue Origin has only conducted test flights and is yet to launch its rockets.

Jeff Bezos passes both Warren Buffet and Amancio Ortega who are worth $74.9 billion and $74.2 billion respectively, to become the second richest person in the world. Bezos is $10.4 billion behind Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who remains the long-standing richest person in the world worth $86 billion.


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