Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have become "incredibly wealthy". Details here

 

Meanwhile, Elon Musk has expanded an extraordinary range of wealth gains to become a billionaire. Shares of Tesla Inc. On Wednesday, which pushed his net worth to $ 101 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a list of the 500 richest people in the world.

Three of the world's richest people have achieved amazing new levels of personal wealth.

The Amazon.com Inc. founder's net worth exceeded her. Jeff Bezos $ 200 billion on Wednesday as the e-commerce giant's shares rose to a record high. The move meanwhile pushed his ex-wife Mackenzie Scott, 50, to the brink of becoming the richest woman in the world, behind L'Oreal SA heiress, Françoise Bettencourt Myers.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk has expanded an extraordinary range of wealth gains to become a billionaire. Shares of Tesla Inc. On Wednesday, which pushed his net worth to $ 101 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a list of the 500 richest people in the world.

Tech companies boosted the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite indexes to new highs for a fourth straight day, buoyed by news that the Federal Reserve is likely to keep short-term interest rates near zero for at least five years.

The gains by Bezos, 56, and Musk represent the latest high-water mark of wealth accumulation in a volatile year, defined by both emerging markets and catastrophic human and economic losses. The world's 500 richest people have gained $ 809 billion so far this year, an increase of 14% since January, even as a global pandemic caused a record decline in GDP and millions of jobs lost.

Income inequality

Growing income inequality has sparked sharp reactions from progressive politicians and critics on the left. US Senator Bernie Sanders earlier this month introduced legislation to tax "extremist" wealth gains during the coronavirus crisis.

On Wednesday, Sanders said in a statement: "We cannot continue to allow billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to become super-rich while millions of Americans face eviction, hunger and economic despair." It is time to radically change our national priorities.

Others see their enormous fortune as justified, saying they earned it by setting up individual businesses. "When you look at Musk and Bezos, it's unbelievable to say that they changed the world in their own way," said Thomas Hayes, Chairman of Great Hill Capital.

The increase in wealth is particularly concentrated in the upper ranks of the Billionaires Index and has been fueled largely by technology stocks, which have been in tatters as the pandemic pushed more people online. This also includes the rising number of individual investors buying shares.

Musk, 49, who is now one of the world's four billionaires, has seen his fortune grow by $ 73.6 billion this year, a jump that is still lower than that of Bezos, which rose by $ 87.1 billion. Mark Zuckerberg's net worth to Facebook surpassed $ 100 billion earlier this month. On Wednesday alone, it rose by $ 8.5 billion.

Tech tycoons in the US were not the only ones to benefit. India's Mukesh Ambani became the first Asian to be ranked among the world's five richest people last month. He has earned $ 22.5 billion this year on the back of a stock increase for his Reliance Industries Ltd. , Whose tech division has attracted recent investments from the likes of Facebook and Silver Lake.