JEFF BEZOS WEALTH HITS RECORD $211B ON PENTAGON MOVE

Jeff Bezos is leaving the rest of the world behind when it comes to wealth accumulation. The world’s richest man reached a record $211 billion net worth Tuesday after Amazon.com Inc. shares rose 4.7% as the Pentagon announced it was canceling a cloud-computing contract with rival Microsoft Corp.

The rally raised Bezos’s fortune by $8.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Scott Carpenter and Sophie Alexander reported for Bloomberg News.

The last time anyone in the Bloomberg ranking neared this amount was in January, when Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk briefly hit $210 billion. The two men spent the first part of the year trading the top spot as the world’s richest person, but Bezos has cemented his hold on No. 1 since mid-March as Amazon shares climbed almost 20% during that time.

Soaring stock prices in recent months have boosted the fortunes of a group of tech titans including Musk. He remains in second place behind Bezos with a $180.8 billion net worth even as Tesla shares fell Tuesday. French luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault is third at $168.5 billion.

Bezos’s record haul is even greater than during a 2020 Amazon stock surge when his net worth topped out at $206.9 billion as the pandemic turbocharged the company’s price. Bezos, 57, officially stepped down as Amazon’s chief executive officer this week after a 27-year run.

He still owns about 11% of the company and serves as the firm’s executive chairman.

The Pentagon said Tuesday it was scrapping a $10 billion cloud-computing contract awarded in 2019 to Microsoft Corp. after several years of wrangling between the government and some of the biggest US tech companies over the deal.

The decision indicates it planned to split the work between Microsoft and rival Amazon, Jack Witzig also reported for Bloomberg News.

WEEKLY FEATURE : PAL READY TO SOAR WITH PANDEMIC