On Tuesday, Amazon Inc shares rose 4.7 per cent after Pentagon announced that it was canceling a cloud-computing contract with rival Microsoft Corp. Jeff Bezos has raised fortune by 8.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Last time in January, when Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk briefly hit $210 billion. The world’s two wealthiest persons spent the first part of trading, but Bezos has cemented his hold on No. 1 since mid-March as Amazon shares climbed almost 20 per cent during that time.

Soaring stock prices in recent months have boosted the fortunes of a group of tech titans, including Musk. He remains in second place behind Bezos with a $180.8 billion net worth even as Tesla shares fell Tuesday.
French luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault is third at $168.5 billion.

Bezos’s record haul is even greater than during a 2020 Amazon stock surge when his net worth topped out at $206.9 billion as the pandemic turbocharged the company’s price. Bezos, 57, officially stepped down as Amazon’s chief executive officer this week after a 27-year run. He still owns about 11 per cent of the company and serves as the firm’s executive chairman.

The Pentagon said Tuesday it was scrapping a $10 billion cloud-computing contract awarded in 2019 to Microsoft Corp. after several years of wrangling between the government and some of the biggest US tech companies over the deal. The decision indicates it planned to split the work between Microsoft and rival Amazon.