Looking at Amazon's stock, one of the more surreal financial things going on during this pandemic depression, is seeing the Bezos fortune cross $200 billion today while we have 30 million newly unemployed persons in the past six weeks. Had Jeff and MacKenzie not gotten divorced in the recent past, Jeff would presently be listed right at about $200 billion today. As it is, Jeff is up to $150 billion and MacKenzie is at $50 billion. Jeff is nearly worth as much as Warren Buffett & Mark Zuckerberg combined (#4 and #5). If the tech juggernaut outperformance (they're levitating apart from much of the economy) continues for a bit longer, it'll take Bill Gates + Warren Buffett ($180b) to equal Jeff alone.
It's safe to say Jeff is the wealthiest person that has ever lived, short of fantastical examples like Genghis Khan. Gates hit near $100b ($152b inflation adjusted) during the peak of the dotcom bubble. However, logically only some split of that $100b should be exclusively credited to him, as he was of course married to Melinda, whereas Jeff is worth $150b alone. By contrast, Rockefeller was likely never worth more than $25 to $50 billion (inflation adjusted; at his peak it's thought he might have approached $2b in his day; the historical record is certain he crossed $1b; the reasonable inflation adjustment back to the 1920s and 1930s is anywhere from 20x to 30x depending on how aggressive you want to be).
(ignore the stupid, yet persistent claims that Rockefeller would be worth $300-$400 billion today as an adjustment; those claims are not using any manner of proper inflation adjustment; instead, that's based on taking Rockefeller's wealth as a percentage of the US economy at the time, and then doing the same thing for the US economy today (eg if his wealth equaled 1.5% of GDP in 1928 or 1937, then 1.5% today would be $330b), a complete non-sense approach for numerous obvious reasons)
It's safe to say Jeff is the wealthiest person that has ever lived, short of fantastical examples like Genghis Khan. Gates hit near $100b ($152b inflation adjusted) during the peak of the dotcom bubble. However, logically only some split of that $100b should be exclusively credited to him, as he was of course married to Melinda, whereas Jeff is worth $150b alone. By contrast, Rockefeller was likely never worth more than $25 to $50 billion (inflation adjusted; at his peak it's thought he might have approached $2b in his day; the historical record is certain he crossed $1b; the reasonable inflation adjustment back to the 1920s and 1930s is anywhere from 20x to 30x depending on how aggressive you want to be).
(ignore the stupid, yet persistent claims that Rockefeller would be worth $300-$400 billion today as an adjustment; those claims are not using any manner of proper inflation adjustment; instead, that's based on taking Rockefeller's wealth as a percentage of the US economy at the time, and then doing the same thing for the US economy today (eg if his wealth equaled 1.5% of GDP in 1928 or 1937, then 1.5% today would be $330b), a complete non-sense approach for numerous obvious reasons)