Bezos regains top spot as world's richest man

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, after briefly losing the top spot as the world's richest man to Bill Gates, regained the position.

Bezos lost to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates after Amazon's lacklustre Q3 results resulted in him losing nearly $7 billion in stock value. Amazon shares fell 7 per cent in after-hours trading on Thursday, leaving Bezos down to $103.9 billion.

Though shares of Amazon fell on Friday compared to Thursday's market close, the drop wasn't as steep as in after-hours trading.

Amazon shares fell 1 per cent to $1,760.78 on Friday, putting Bezos' net worth at $109.9 billion, and back at number one, according to Forbes.

Gates is just $4.1 billion behind Bezos at number two richest, worth $105.8 billion.

Bezos ended Gates' 24-year run as the richest man in 2018 and became the first man on earth with a net worth of $160 billion.

Amazon reported a 26 per cent drop in net income in its third quarter, its first profit decline since 2017, reports Forbes.

In after-hours trading, Amazon dropped nearly 9 per cent to $1,624 per share.

Gates debuted on Forbes' first ever billionaire list in 1987 with a net worth of $1.25 billion.

Bezos first joined The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans in 1998, one year after Amazon went public, with a net worth of $1.6 billion, the report added.IANS