Richest retirement ever? Jeff Bezos is stepping down from Amazon at 57 with US$199 billion

Jul 6 , 2021

Jeff Bezos retired with US$199 billion – almost 740,000 times that of the average American retiree. Photo: AFP/Getty Images/TNS

The former Amazon CEO and richest person in the world will be replaced by Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy before jetting off on his Blue Origins space flight

Covid-19 increased his wealth by US$75 billion as online sales boomed – now he’s retiring with 740,000 times the net worth of the average American retiree

Jeff Bezos’ reign as Amazon CEO came to an end on Monday, July 5, and he stepped down as the world’s richest person.

He retired from the role at the age of 57 with an estimated US$199 billion in wealth, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire’s Index. The fortune largely consists of his hefty Amazon holdings and other assets. He received an US$81,840 salary and US$1.6 million in other compensation from Amazon last year.

Founder and former chairman, CEO and president of Amazon Jeff Bezos unveils his space company Blue Origin’s space exploration lunar lander rocket called Blue Moon during an event in Washington, in May 2019. Photo: Reuters

His fortune is 739,489 times the median net worth of an American at the age of 65, the average age at which people in the US retire, according to the US Census Bureau.

The median net worth of Americans in that age bracket is US$266,400, according to data from the Federal Reserve.

Bezos’ wealth ballooned even more over the past year as the pandemic drove sales skyward on his company’s online marketplace, sending shares higher. His net worth exploded by US$75 billion over the course of 2020.

An Amazon.com worker picks orders at an Amazon fulfilment centre in January 2015, in Tracy, California. Photo: Getty Images

He’s more than twice as wealthy as the entire British monarchy, which is worth an estimated US$88 billion as of 2017, and his fortune exceeds some nations’ GDPs – though the comparison isn’t exact between output and value. Bezos makes more money every second than the average US worker makes in a week.

He has drawn criticism for watching his wallet thicken while thousands of Amazon warehouse workers live on food stamps and work in poor conditions.

Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos addresses the media about the New Shepard rocket booster and Crew Capsule mock-up at the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in April 2017. Photo: Reuters

Bezos will be replaced by Andy Jassy, the current CEO of Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud platform.

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