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For The First Time, Jeff Bezos Became Forbes' Richest Person

On Thursday, the Amazon CEO topped Forbes' list of richest people for the first time — a result of Amazon's exploding growth.

For The First Time, Jeff Bezos Became Forbes' Richest Person
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Ryan Biek
By Ryan Biek
SMS
Posted: 3:43 p.m. EDT Jul 27, 2017

Want an idea of how much Amazon is growing? On Thursday, CEO Jeff Bezos became the richest person in the world.

Thanks to a 1 percent boost in Amazon's share prices, Bezos overtook Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Forbes' rich list.

Now keep in mind, these rankings sway, and Forbes updates them regularly. Gates had taken back the throne at least a few times Thursday.

But, Bezos' net worth had passed $90 billion, and he took the world's richest title for the first time.

It's a pretty monumental achievement since Gates has been at the No. 1 spot on Forbes' list for 18 of the past 23 years. 

Bloomberg notes five years ago, Bezos' wealth was about $30 billion lower than Gates'.

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But since the beginning of 2017 alone, Amazon's stock price has jumped more than 40 percent.

That's led to Bezos gaining a reported $25 billion in net worth over the past six months.

The world's third-richest person, businessman Amancio Ortega, sits more than $5 billion behind both of them.