Jeff Bezos, New World’s Richest Man, Gets $2.8bn Richer in One Day

The rich get richer. Make that -- the richest got richer.

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos -- already the wealthiest person on the planet -- saw his fortune balloon $2.8 billion in a single day, Forbes magazine estimates.

The magazine says the latest Bezos pot of gold was the result of a 2.5 percent rise in Amazon's stock price Tuesday, the day after the debut in Seattle of Amazon Go, the company's first cashier-less, checkout line-free brick and mortar store.

That brought the Bezos net worth to $113.5 billion, based on Forbes' calculations -- the highest it's ever been.

That's a big jump from the nearest people on Forbes' list of the richest people in the world: Bill Gates, who's worth about $92.5 billion and Warren Buffett, who's just behind Gates at $92.3 billion, according to Fortune.

"Bezos' 12-figure-fortune nominally makes him the wealthiest person since Forbes started tracking fortunes in 1982. If we factor in inflation, Bill Gates was richer back in 1999, when he briefly passed $100 billion -- worth roughly $150 billion in today's dollars," Forbes says.

Gates, Microsoft's founder, has given away some $36 billion, Forbes says, while Bezos, the son of a Cuban immigrant, has only started sharing his wealth recently.

Most of Bezos' wealth comes from his 16 percent stake in e-commerce giant Amazon, Fortune points out, adding that Amazon's total stock value of more than $650 billion makes it one of the most valuable companies in the world.

Source: CBSNEWS