E-commerce giant Amazon’s shares climbed to a record on Wednesday, making Jeff Bezos and his ex-spouse Mackenzie Scott even more rich. Bezos, already the world’s richest man was catapulted to the $200 billion mark, a feat never achieved before while Scott came closer to becoming the world’s richest woman, just behind L’Oreal SA heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers.
Amazon stock is nearly up by 80% since the beginning of the year, the result of the change in consumer habit in the Coronavirus pandemic, with most people opting for e-retail purchases. While Bezos amasses record wealth in the pandemic which has wreaked economic havoc in the world, millions have been pushed into poverty and unemployment and Amazon workers continue to face dire working conditions. Many workers have protested against the unsafe working conditions and ‘misery pay’.
Mackenzie Scott, a novelist who divorced Bezos in 2019, got 25% of his Amazon stock as settlement, which is worth $63 billion now. Scott has since then donated $1.7 billion of her fortune and said she plans on ‘giving away until the safe is empty’.
Apart from Bezos, Elon Musk also achieved new heights of weath since the pandemic. The rising income inequality received sharp criticism from US senator Bernie Sanders who said, We cannot continue to allow billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to become obscenely rich while millions of Americans face eviction, hunger and economic desperation. It’s time to fundamentally change our national priorities.”
