Jeff Bezos Loses $13 Billion In Just Hours

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lost $13 billion of his fortune after the popular online marketplace reported a rare quarterly loss.

It might have literally just been payday, but I can still barely imagine the feeling of losing even just $13 (£10), let alone a billion times that.

That being said, I don't feel sorry for anyone who is rich enough to lose $13 billion (£10.3 billion) in a matter of hours, especially if that someone is the founder of Amazon. With a net worth of much more than $100 billion (£79.4 billion), I think it's safe to say he'll manage just fine.

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Bezos' big loss came after Amazon released an update on business in the first three months of the year on Thursday (28 April), with the report off the back of almost two years characterised by pandemic-fuelled online shopping

As members of the public are largely no longer bound by restrictions to stay at home, Amazon reported its first quarterly loss since 2015, losing $3.84 billion (£3 billion), or $7.56 (£5.90) a share, between January and March 2022, as well as recording the slowest sales growth since 2001.

In the same time period last year, the company reported a profit of $8.1 billion (£6.4b), or $15.79 (£12.50) a share.

With investors disappointed by the revelation, the e-commerce company's stock fell more than 8 percent in early New York trading today (29 April), Bloomberg reports, with Bezos' net worth on track to drop to around $155 billion (£123 billion) if the loss persists. Last year, Bezos' net worth peaked at more than $210 billion (£166 billion). 

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While acknowledging its losses this week, Amazon's Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said the company had doubled the size of its operations and nearly doubled its workforce in the last two years, stressing that while labour shortages and a lack of physical space are no longer considered major issues, the company still faces pressures such as increased shipping costs.

As reported by ABC News, the CFO explained expenses related to inflation added approximately $2 billion (£1.59 billion) of incremental costs when compared to last year, Olsavsky said, while another $4 billion (£3.18 billion) in costs came from productivity loss and other inefficiencies.

In a statement on the matter, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said: "The pandemic and subsequent war in Ukraine have brought unusual growth and challenges. Our teams are squarely focused on improving productivity and cost efficiencies throughout our fulfillment network. We know how to do this and have done it before.”

Amazon has added a 5 percent surcharge for third-party sellers who use its fulfillment services, as well as increasing the price of its annual Prime membership fee by $20 (£15.90).

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