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Topics: Jeff Bezos, Money, Amazon
Anish Vij
Topics: Jeff Bezos, Money, Amazon
Amazon has become the first ever public company to reportedly lose $1 trillion or, more technically, $1,000,000,000,000.
The dire state of the tech stock market right now is about to get a lot worse as Amazon fell 4.3 percent on Wednesday (9 November), which meant that its market value has dropped to around $879 billion.
For context, Amazon's market value was around $1.88 trillion on July 2021, which means that the whopping $1 trillion loss is the first for a public company, reports Bloomberg.
Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky had previously told Reuters: "We are seeing signs all around that, again, people's budgets are tight, inflation is still high, energy costs are an additional layer on top of that caused by other issues.
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"We are preparing for what could be a slower growth period, like most companies."
The massive dip in share price also means that Jeff Bezos is no long the second-richest person in the world.
Bloomberg's Billionaire Index reports that Bezos is now the fourth richest.
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He overtook Bill Gates as world's richest person on Oct. 27, 2017, but there are now a few ahead of him, with Elon Musk currently leading the line.
However, stepping back for just a moment, Bezos still has a net worth of an unthinkable $109 billion.
If he wanted to, Bezos could buy 63.8 million troy ounces of gold, 1.18 billion barrels of crude oil, which is equivalent to 0.474 percent of the GDP of the United States and 1.62 percent of the total wealth of the 500 richest people in the world.
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The Amazon founder is currently being sued by his former housekeeper who alleges that she contracted frequent urinary tract infections due to ‘unsanitary’ conditions in his home.
Mercedes Wedaa was hired by the billionaire for a housekeeping role in 2019 that required her to 'work around a family without being seen', the complaint claims.
Documents filed by Wedaa's lawyer, Patrick McGuigan, state: "Employers discriminated against Plaintiff because of her race, forced Plaintiff to work long hours without rest or meal breaks, exposed Plaintiff to unsafe and unsanitary work conditions, retaliated against and wrongfully terminated Plaintiff’s employment."
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Bezo's lawyer, Harry Korrell, said: "Ms Wedaa made over six figures annually and was the lead housekeeper.
"She was responsible for her own break and meal times, and there were several bathrooms and breakrooms available to her and other staff.
"The evidence will show that Ms Wedaa was terminated for performance reasons.
"Given their backgrounds, the suggestion that Bezos, Sanchez, or Northwestern LLC discriminated against Ms Wedaa based on her race or national origin is absurd."