Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is a very, very rich man.
How rich? So rich that his net worth has risen by $67 billion this year alone, bringing the grand total of his immense fortune to $167 billion, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. Bezos' deep pockets surpassed all of his billionaire peers earlier this year, when he became the richest person in modern history.
As Bloomberg reports, his $67 billion gain alone would make him the seventh-richest person in the world. The 499 other billionaires that Bloomberg has ranked have gained an additional $8.3 billion to their net worths this year — combined. Perhaps most shockingly, Bezos' wealth has increased by an average of about $8 million an hour in 2018.
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That means Bezos could buy an $8 million private island off the coast of Maine every hour without making a dent in his historic net worth. It means he could buy an entire Nevada town every hour and still be the richest man on Earth by far. Bezos could scoop up Oprah Winfrey's Orcas Island estate 24 times a day with his pocket change. The Amazon founder could buy the most valuable Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever discovered with his hourly gains, and his wallet would never know the difference.
Bezos could also pay warehouse workers such outrageously high wages that there's no way Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) could ever accuse him of forcing them onto public assistance — but instead, he has decided to send wealthy travelers to space. Oh, to be in the 0.000001 percent.
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