Jeff Bezos Net Worth 2026: Inside His $370 Billion Fortune

Jeff Bezos’ net worth is about $370 billion, according to Forbes’ estimate in early October 2026. That makes him the second-richest person in the world, behind only Elon Musk.

Jeff Bezos: quick facts

Net worth

$370 Billion

Source of wealth

Amazon, Blue Origin

Profession

Founder and executive chairman, Amazon

Nationality

American

Place of birth

Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.

Date of birth

January 12, 1964 (age 62)

Bezos built most of his fortune from Amazon, which he started in a rented garage in 1994. But his wealth jumped by about $102 billion in September 2026 alone, mostly because two private companies he controls were valued much higher: the rocket maker Blue Origin and the AI start-up Prometheus.

Today those two companies make up more than a third of his net worth. The rest is mainly his remaining Amazon shares, cash from decades of stock sales, real estate and a large venture portfolio.

Jeff Bezos at a glance

• Net worth: about $370 billion (Forbes, October 2026)
• World ranking: No. 2, behind Elon Musk
• Born: January 12, 1964, in Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Companies: Amazon (founder, executive chairman), Blue Origin, Prometheus, Bezos Expeditions, The Washington Post
• Amazon stake: about 8% of the company
• Amazon stock sold: more than $49 billion since the 1997 IPO
• Spouse: Lauren Sánchez (married June 2025)

Where Jeff Bezos’ money comes from

Asset	What he owns	Why it matters
Amazon	About 8% of the company	Still his largest public holding
Blue Origin	Founder and majority owner	Raising money at a $130 billion valuation
Prometheus	About 20%	Valued at $41 billion; his stake is worth about $8.2 billion
Cash from stock sales	More than $49 billion sold since 1997	Funds Blue Origin, homes and giving
Bezos Expeditions	Personal venture fund	Early Google stake and dozens of start-ups
The Washington Post	Owns it outright	Bought for $250 million in 2013
Real estate	Homes across the U.S.	Several hundred million dollars in property

Net worth over time

Bezos’ fortune has swung with Amazon’s share price for most of his career. Forbes’ annual estimates show the pattern:

• 2020: about $113 billion, when he was the world’s richest person
• 2021: about $177 billion, after the pandemic boom in online shopping
• 2023: about $114 billion, after tech stocks fell in 2022
• 2025: about $215 billion, as Amazon’s cloud and AI business grew
• October 2026: about $370 billion, after the Blue Origin and Prometheus valuations

The chart at the end of this article shows every year.

Early life

Bezos was born Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen on January 12, 1964, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His mother, Jackie, was a teenager when he was born, and his parents split up soon after.

In 1968 his mother married Miguel “Mike” Bezos, a Cuban immigrant who adopted four-year-old Jeff and gave him his surname. The family moved to Houston and later to Miami.

Bezos was the valedictorian of his high school in Miami. He went on to Princeton University, where he switched from physics to electrical engineering and computer science and graduated summa cum laude in 1986.

Wall Street career

After Princeton, Bezos worked at the tech start-up Fitel and then at Bankers Trust. In 1990 he joined the hedge fund D. E. Shaw, where he became one of its youngest senior vice presidents by the age of 30.

At D. E. Shaw he read that web usage was growing by more than 2,000% a year. He decided to leave his well-paid job and start an online business, writing the business plan on a road trip from New York to Seattle.

Founding Amazon

Bezos founded Amazon on July 5, 1994, in a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington. It started as an online bookstore.

His parents invested about $300,000 of their savings. Bezos warned early investors that there was a 70% chance they would lose their money.

Amazon went public in 1997, raising $54 million. It nearly ran out of cash after the dot-com crash in 2000 and had to lay off 14% of its workers. It made its first annual profit, $35 million, in 2003.

How Amazon became a $2 trillion company

Bezos kept reinvesting profits into new businesses instead of paying dividends. The biggest bets were:

• Amazon Prime (2005): fast shipping for a yearly fee, now with hundreds of millions of members
• Amazon Web Services (AWS): cloud computing for other companies, now Amazon’s most profitable unit
• Kindle (2007): e-readers and digital books
• Whole Foods (2017): a $13.7 billion move into grocery stores
• Advertising: now one of the largest ad businesses in the world

In July 2021 Bezos stepped down as CEO and handed the job to Andy Jassy, the longtime head of AWS. He remains Amazon’s executive chairman.

Why his Amazon stake shrank

Bezos owned more than 40% of Amazon when it went public. Today he owns about 8%. Three things reduced his stake:

• Divorce: in 2019 his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, received a quarter of the couple’s Amazon shares, then worth about $36 billion
• Share sales: he has sold more than $49 billion of stock since 1997, including about $4 billion in early 2024
• Gifts: billions in Amazon shares donated to charity

Bezos’ official Amazon salary has always been small, about $80,000 a year. Almost all of his Amazon wealth comes from the value of his shares.

Blue Origin

Bezos founded Blue Origin in September 2000 to build reusable rockets. For two decades he paid for it mostly himself, selling about $1 billion of Amazon stock a year to fund it.

Key moments:

• 2015: New Shepard rocket reaches space and lands upright
• July 20, 2021: Bezos flies to space on New Shepard with his brother Mark
• 2025: the much larger New Glenn rocket reaches orbit
• 2026: Blue Origin begins raising money at a $130 billion valuation, with Coatue Management expected to lead the round

Because Bezos owned almost all of the company before this round, the new valuation added tens of billions of dollars to his net worth almost overnight.

Prometheus

Prometheus is an industrial AI company that Bezos co-founded with Vik Bajaj, a former chief scientific officer at Verily. It raised $12 billion in June 2026 at a $41 billion valuation.

Forbes estimates Bezos owns about 20%, worth roughly $8.2 billion. The company has about 150 employees and has not yet announced a commercial product.

Bezos Expeditions and other investments

Bezos invests his own money through Bezos Expeditions. His most famous early bet was on Google: he invested $250,000 in 1998, a stake that later became worth billions.

Other holdings have included health and biotech companies such as GRAIL, Juno Therapeutics, Unity Biotechnology and Altos Labs, as well as the doctor-booking site Zocdoc.

The Washington Post

In 2013 Bezos bought The Washington Post for $250 million in cash, through his private company Nash Holdings. It is owned by him personally, not by Amazon. The paper returned to profit in 2016 but has since faced losses and staff cuts.

Real estate

Bezos owns one of the most valuable home portfolios in the world. Highlights include:

Property	Year	Reported price
Warner Estate, Beverly Hills (bought from David Geffen)	2020	$165 million (a Los Angeles record at the time)
Three connected apartments, Madison Square Park, Manhattan	2019	$80 million
14-acre estate on Maui, Hawaii	2022	$78 million
Flatiron apartment, Manhattan	2022	$16.1 million
Indian Creek island homes, Miami	2023–2024	Several properties on the private island
Ranch near Van Horn and Cotulla, Texas	2006 onward	About 160,000 acres combined

He also owns a former museum in Washington, D.C., and the family’s long-time home near Seattle. Since 2023 his main residence has been in Florida, which has no state income tax.

Superyacht

Bezos’ sailing superyacht, delivered in 2023, is one of the largest in the world and reportedly cost more than $500 million. It comes with a separate support vessel.

Personal life

Bezos married novelist MacKenzie Scott in 1993. They have four children: three sons and a daughter adopted from China. They divorced in 2019.

He became engaged to former TV journalist and helicopter pilot Lauren Sánchez in 2023. They married in Venice, Italy, in June 2025.

Philanthropy

• Bezos Earth Fund: a $10 billion pledge in 2020 to fight climate change
• Day One Fund: $2 billion in 2018 for homeless families and free preschools
• Obama Foundation: $100 million in 2021
• TheDream.US: $33 million in 2018 for college scholarships for immigrants

Bezos has said he plans to give away most of his fortune during his lifetime, but he has not signed the Giving Pledge.

How Jeff Bezos compares

Rank	Name	Net worth	Main source
1	Elon Musk	About $919 billion	Tesla, SpaceX
2	Jeff Bezos	About $370 billion	Amazon, Blue Origin
3	Larry Page	About $278 billion	Google
4	Michael Dell	About $266 billion	Dell Technologies

Figures are Forbes estimates from early October 2026. See the full list of the 50 richest people in the world.

Frequently asked questions

How much is Jeff Bezos worth?

About $370 billion, according to Forbes’ estimate in early October 2026.

Is Jeff Bezos the richest person in the world?

No. He is second, behind Elon Musk. Bezos was the world’s richest person on and off between 2017 and 2021.

How much of Amazon does Jeff Bezos own?

About 8%. He owned more than 40% when Amazon went public, but his divorce, gifts and regular share sales have reduced his stake.

Why did Jeff Bezos’ net worth jump in 2026?

Mainly because Blue Origin started raising money at a $130 billion valuation and his AI company Prometheus was valued at $41 billion.

What is Jeff Bezos’ salary?

His Amazon salary has been about $80,000 a year. His wealth comes from owning shares, not from pay.

Who owns The Washington Post?

Jeff Bezos, personally. He bought it for $250 million in 2013.

Sources: Forbes (World’s Billionaires lists and real-time estimate, October 2026), Bloomberg, Axios, CNBC, Wikipedia. All net worth figures are estimates.