Bezos, Zuckerberg $ 18 billion richer as tech stocks rally in Biden’s early days

THE RICHEST FORTUNES IN THE WORLD

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The richest person in the world, Jeff Bezos, has had a great week. The CEO of Amazon grew rich by $ 10 billion, bringing his net worth to $ 191.5 billion. He has a $ 8.3 billion lead over Tesla CEO Elon Musk (net worth: $ 183.2 billion), who briefly held No. 1 this month before falling back to No. 2. Even better for Bezos? Part of his boost this week comes from the departure of Donald Trump, constant Amazon critic and Bezos ownership Washington post.

President Joe Biden was inaugurated on Wednesday, propelling tech actions towards optimism over the Covid-19 vaccine and his administration’s stimulus plans. Amazon ended the week up 6.1%, Facebook gained 9.2%, and parent of Google Alphabet rose 9.5%, beating the weekly gains of the S&P and the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 2% respectively. and 0.5%.

On the inauguration day, Amazon executive Dave Clark sent a letter to Biden offering Amazon resources to help distribute the vaccine. “We are ready to leverage our operations, information technology, communication capabilities and expertise to aid your administration’s immunization efforts,” he wrote. Clark also took the opportunity to advocate for prioritizing immunizations for Amazon’s 800,000 employees, most of whom are essential frontline workers.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (net worth: $ 100.4 billion) earned $ 7.9 billion this week, not only because of the general optimism around the new administration, but also because of the confidence increased Wall Street in the social media giant. BMO Capital Markets analyst Daniel Salmon upgraded the headline on Tuesday, citing the strength of Facebook’s e-commerce platform and the hope of facing fewer obstacles in its targeting activity advertising in the future. He set his target price at $ 325, about 18% above the stock’s current price.

Google co-founders Larry Page (net worth: $ 83 billion) and Sergey Brin (net worth: $ 80.6 billion) earned $ 6.6 billion and $ 6.3 billion respectively during the stock market rally technological. But that wasn’t good news for Google this week. The company has decided to shut down Loon, its effort to bring high-speed internet to remote areas of the world using balloons. It also faces an ongoing antitrust lawsuit filed by 10 states, which accuses Google of colluding with Facebook to corner the online advertising market. Google has requested that the lawsuit be moved from Texas to California, where the lawsuit has been filed. If the company achieves its wish, it could face a more tech-savvy jury.

European stocks also rose during Biden’s inauguration, fueled by hopes the new president will mend the strained relationship by the former president. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, went so far as tweeting wednesday that “the United States is back”. Bernard Arnault, president of luxury conglomerate LVMH and the richest man in Europe, got richer by $ 5.6 billion this week.

HERE ARE THE BIGGEST BILLIONAIRE WINNERS THIS WEEK.

The change in net worth is from the Friday January 15 market near the Friday January 22 market close.

NET WORTH | $ 191.5 BILLION, UP BY $ 10 BILLION

COUNTRY | UNITED STATES

SOURCE OF WEALTH | AMAZON

NET WORTH | $ 100.4 BILLION, UP $ 7.9 BILLION

COUNTRY | UNITED STATES

SOURCE OF WEALTH | FACEBOOK