- Amazon’s stock plummeted by 3.19% on Monday.
- Amazon’s CEO and Founder, Jeff Bezos, could have lost another $90 million had he not sold $2.8 million in Amazon shares before Monday.
- The fall in stocks has resulted in a $3.4 billion fall in Bezos’ net worth.
Amazon’s CEO and Founder, Jeff Bezos, would have lost another $89.3 million in wealth had he not sold $2.8 billion Amazon shares before the Monday sell-off.
Amazon’s
stock plunged by 3.19% and Bezos’ net worth dipped to $110 billion on Monday. He’s still the richest man in the world — just $3.4 billion lighter.
Cashing out just in timeIt’s not just Bezos that was hit. US stocks plummeted on Monday resulting in a 2.1% reduction in the collective wealth of the 500 most wealthy people in the world, which comes up to approximately $5.4 trillion.
Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index lost a little over $1 billion with
tech giants, Apple, Alphabet and Amazon
among the worst hit.Bezos’ Amazon might have taken a hit but the billionaire caught a lucky break
cashing in $1.8 billion worth of the Amazon shares over the last three days of July. He even sold another
$990 million worth of Amazon shares during the first two days of August.
When Bezos was selling these shares, the stock price was around $1,900. When the markets closed on Monday, the stock price had hit $1,765.13.
And, since Bezos sold 530,000 Amazon shares early this month, he will net an estimated $750 million in cash after taxes, according to
Forbes.
Even though Bezos has not disclosed the intended purpose of the cash, his past comments indicate that it will likely go into funding Blue Origin, his space company.
A direct hit of the China US trade war
The
decline of the stock market started sometime last week after US President Donald Trump announced that he had plans to extend tariffs to almost all Chinese imports. Since then, the yuan
slid to its lowest value against the US dollar in a over a decade.
See also:
Here's why Jeff Bezos may want a stake in Mukesh Ambani's Reliance RetailJeff Bezos just sold $1.8 billion worth of Amazon shares - here's our best guess at whyThe cost to protect against a China debt default just spiked the most in 6 yearsJeff Bezos sold another $990 million worth of Amazon shares at the end of last week