Amazon founder Jeff Bezos became $13bn (£10bn) richer in a single day on Monday after shares in his company surged nearly 8%.
Already the world’s richest man by a huge margin, Bezos is now estimated to be worth $189.3bn (£148bn).
His fortune has ballooned $74bn (£58bn) this year alone, according to Bloomberg, with Amazon shares up more than 70% in 2020.
The daily jump in the 56-year-old’s wealth is the biggest ever recorded by Bloomberg’s billionaire tracker.
The all-encompassing web giant has reaped the benefit of the coronavirus lockdown as people increasingly avoid shops and buy online.
Bezos famously started his company in his garage in the mid-1990s, rapidly expanding from selling books to establish an online juggernaut that spans the world.
His personal wealth now exceeds the value of huge multinational companies and is roughly on par with the GDP of Iraq – and only about $14bn (£11bn) behind Greece.
 richer in a single day on Monday after shares in his company surged nearly 8%.){kind=link}