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Imagine, for a second, being a US dollar billionaire.

That’s a thousand million American dollars, or around R17 billion, depending on the exchange rate.

Now, imagine having 200 of those, and you’re looking at somewhere close to Jeff Bezos’ personal fortune.

Yesterday, as Amazon stock edged up around 2% by the afternoon, Bezos broke new ground, becoming the first person to ever cross over the $200 billion mark since Forbes started measuring net worths close to 40 years ago.

At the age of 56, that’s a nice little personal milestone to tick off:

As of 1:50 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, the Amazon founder and CEO is worth $204.6 billion—nearly $90 billion more than the world’s second-richest person, Bill Gates, who’s currently worth $116.1 billion.

Even adjusting for inflation, Forbes believes Bezos’ fortune is the largest ever amassed. The person to come closest is Gates, who was the world’s first-ever centibillionaire. Near the height of the dot-com bubble, when Microsoft reached its then-peak in 1999, Gates’ net worth surpassed $100 billion, roughly $158 billion in today’s dollars.

Take that, Gates, you peasant.

Bezos’ wealth is intricately linked to the performance of Amazon, given that he holds around 11% of the company’s total shares, which accounts for close to 90% of his net worth.

Also, don’t forget that he would be even wealthier if he was still with his now ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott. The two divorced last July, in what is the most expensive settlement of all time:

…he agreed to give her 25% of his Amazon stake, a chunk of stock now worth $63 billion.

Even after giving away $1.7 billion in charitable gifts earlier this year, Scott is currently the world’s 14th-richest person and second-richest woman, behind L’Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers.

Mark Zuckerberg also had a notable week, seeing his personal wealth cross the $100 billion mark for the first time on Tuesday, and he now sits close to the $110 billion mark.

Even now, with so many around the world crippled by the financial destruction wrought by COVID-19, the rich get richer:

There are now more centibillionaires on the planet than ever. Joining Bezos, Gates and the newly crowned Zuckerberg is LVMH chair Bernard Arnault, who first joined the 12-figure ranks last year.

Though his net worth slipped to about $80 billion at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in March, Arnault reclaimed the centibillionaire title in May and today is worth about $115 billion. This makes him the third-richest person on earth–$90 billion poorer than Jeff Bezos.

That’s one way to put it, but I’m getting some serious ‘glass half empty’ vibes there.

Another way would be to say that he’s richer than roughly 7,8 billion people.

There, that has a decent ring to it.

[source:forbes]