Rank 2
Jeff Bezos
202B
Amazon
Miami, Florida
United States
- Growing up, Bezos worked summers on his grandfather's ranch repairing Caterpillar tractors.
- Bezos met Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998 and managed to become one of the company's first angel investors, putting in an estimated $250,000.
- Jeff Bezos founded e-commerce giant Amazon in 1994 out of his Seattle garage.
- Bezos stepped down as CEO to become executive chairman in 2021. He owns a bit less than 10% of the company.
- He and his wife MacKenzie divorced in 2019 after 25 years of marriage and he transferred a quarter of his then-16% Amazon stake to her.
- Bezos donated more than $1.1 million worth of stock to nonprofits in 2023, though it's unclear which organizations received those shares
- He owns The Washington Post and Blue Origin, an aerospace company developing rockets; he briefly flew to space in one in July 2021.
- Bezos said in a November 2022 interview with CNN that he plans to give away the majority of his wealth in his lifetime, without disclosing specific details.