Jeff Bezos’ net worth plummets by $12 billion as Amazon stock plunges

Jeff Bezos was $12 billion poorer on Friday as Amazon stock fell by some 10% in early morning trading on Wall Street in the wake of a less-than-stellar earnings report.

Amazon shares dropped by as much as 21% in after-hours trading on Thursday after the company predicted sluggish sales for the holiday shopping season.

A 21% drop in the stock price translates into a loss of $23 billion from Bezos’ net worth.

But the price rebounded after the opening bell Friday.

The 58-year-old Bezos, whose wealth is tied to his ownership stake in Amazon, had a net worth of $122.4 billion as of Friday, according to Forbes’ updated list of the richest people in the world.

Bezos, once the world’s richest person, is now fourth on the list behind Tesla and Twitter boss Elon Musk, French luxury mogul Bernard Arnault and Indian businessman Gautam Adani.

Since July 2021, Bezos has seen his net worth fall by more than $90 billion as Amazon has shed nearly $1 trillion in value. At the height of his wealth, Bezos was worth $214 billion thanks to Amazon’s stock, which was trading at a record level of nearly $186 per share during the coronavirus pandemic.

Bezos, who stepped down as CEO of the company he founded in July 2021, owns a 10% stake in the Seattle-based e-commerce giant.

He has used his vast fortune to fund the privately owned rocket company Blue Origin.

Bezos’ successor as CEO, Andy Jassy, has his hands full steering the company through an inhospitable economic environment that has eaten into profits of Amazon as well as other blue-chip tech giants like Meta and Google.

Amazon on Thursday projected that its revenues in the final quarter of this year would range between $140 billion and $148 billion — which is far below analyst estimates of $155.15 billion.

The company reported third quarter revenue of $127.10 billion, which is up 15% year over year, but it missed Wall Street estimates of $127.46 billion.

Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing division that was long thought to be the engine of the company’s meteoric growth, reported a 27.5% increase in revenue for the quarter — the slowest pace of growth since 2014.

Bezos isn’t the only mogul whose wealth has dipped over the course of the past year.

Mark Zuckerberg, who made a fortune after co-founding the social network Facebook, has seen his net worth plunge from a record high of $142 billion a year ago to just $36.7 billion.

Zuckerberg, who just two years ago was ranked third in overall wealth behind Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, now finds himself at No. 29 on the list of richest people, according to Forbes.