Jeff Bezos' fortune surges by $6.6bn following Amazon earnings

Amazon's third-quarter results topped Wall Street estimates

Mr Bezos has added $18.1bn to his fortune this year (Getty)

The fortune of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos surged by as much as $6.6bn (£5bn) in extended trading on Thursday after the retailer reported third-quarter results that topped Wall Street estimates.

If the gains hold through on Friday, Mr Bezos will probably overtake Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates atop the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 500 richest people. Amazon climbed 8.5 per cent to $1,055.01 at 4:30 pm in New York.

Mr Gates ended Thursday with a net worth of $87.9bn, about $4.5bn ahead of Bezos. Mr Gates has been the world’s richest person since 2013, though he briefly slipped behind Mr Bezos during intraday trading on 27 July Gates ended that day on top.

Mr Bezos, 53, has added $18.1bn to his fortune this year, an increase of 28 per cent. Mr Gates’s net worth rose by $5.56bn, or 6.7 per cent, even after he donated $4.6bn of Microsoft stock to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in August.

Mr Gates, 61, has given away almost 700 million Microsoft shares and $2.9bn of cash and other assets since 1996, according to an analysis of his publicly disclosed giving. He would be worth about $150bn if he hadn’t made the donations.

Bloomberg