Amazon.com Inc. boss Jeff Bezos briefly saw his net worth rocket over $80 billion for the first time ever this week, after his company’s stock rallied on upbeat quarterly results .
Since that overnight pop on Thursday, however, his holdings have backed off enough to put him just under that mark at $79.6 billion, according to the latest tally from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
But he still managed to distance himself from Warren Buffett by more than a billion dollars on Friday and further closed the gap on Bill Gates, whose value dipped almost $100 million to $87.2 billion, compared to a $554 million jump for Bezos.
Since the beginning of the year, Bezos has seen his net worth surge $14.2 billion, which is nearly $10 billion better than Gates.
Spain’s fashion tycoon Amancio Ortega is in second place, but holds only a slight edge over Bezos in third. The two continue to jockey for that position.
Buffett is fourth but has drifted away from the top three this year, with his Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A, -0.87% shares unable to keep pace.
Facebook’s FB, +1.73% Mark Zuckerberg is lurking close behind and has actually seen his net worth jump more than anybody else in the top five.
As for Bezos’s assault on the top spot, for every $1 gain in his stock, his net worth increases by about $81 million, according to numbers we crunched earlier this month.
So, for him to topple Gates, Amazon shares would have to rally almost $100 from here, assuming Microsoft MSFT, +0.28% remains flat.