The last time a someone crossed the $100 billion mark was at the height of the dot com boom. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates was briefly worth $100 billion in April 1999, when Microsoft stock hit a peak. Bezos briefly became the richest person in the world in July, for a mere four hours before dropping back to second place. When Forbes published its annual rankings of the 400 richest Americans in October, Bezos was worth $81.5 billion, $7.5 billion less than Gates. Bezos first joined The Forbes 400 in 1998 with a $1.6 billion fortune, one year after Amazon went public.

Source: Forbes November 27, 2017 18:00 UTC