Jeff Bezos briefly surpasses Bill Gates to become richest person in the world, with fortune hitting US$90.6b

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos on Thursday briefly became the richest person in the world, displacing Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Bezos’ rise to No 1 followed a surge in Amazon.com shares Thursday ahead of the online retailer’s earnings report due out later in the day. The company’s shares have been on a tear over the past year, passing the $1,000 mark and hitting $1,082 around noon on Thursday, propelling Bezos, 53, to US$90.6 billion compared with Gates’s US$90.1 billion. Gates, 61, who built his fortune through Microsoft, has long been among the world’s richest and had held the top spot since May 2013.

Bezos is also the owner of The Washington Post.

By midday, however, Amazon shares gave up much of the gain, and Gates reclaimed the top spot on Forbes magazine’s real-time measure of the fortunes of the world’s wealthiest people.

Amazon shares were down about 3 per cent in after-hours trading Thursday after the retail giant reported that second-quarter profits fell short of expectations. The company posted US$197 million in profit, or about US$0.40 per share. That is down from US$857 million a year ago, or US$1.78 per share in profit. Analysts were expecting US$1.42 a share.

Revenue continues to soar, coming in at US$38 billion. That was better than Wall Street’s estimates of US$37.2 billion, and far outstrips US$30.4 billion in second quarter revenue a year ago.