It’s been an eventful 24 hours for Amazon, with its founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos temporarily snatching the “richest person in the world” crown from Microsoft c0-foundere Bill Gates, before a drop in the retail monolith’s share price pushed him back into second place.
Amazon stock surged overnight in anticipation of its second quarter earnings, climbing to $US1,083 a share and placing the net worth of Bezos, who owns a 17% stake in the company, to $US92.3 billion ($115.8 billion), reports Bloomberg.
The stock movement elevated Bezos ahead of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has a net worth of around $US90.8 billion.
The switch, however, was short lived: Amazon stock fell 0.7% by the end of Wednesday, to $US1,046.
The highly anticipated second-quarter earnings report also pushed Amazon lower, with earning-per-share coming in at 40c for the quarter, missing analyst expectations of $1.42 per share, reports CNBC.
Amazon Web Services was a bright spot in the results, with 42% year-on-year revenue growth.
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