Several tech giants and their owners made tens of billions of dollars in just the few first days of US President Joe Biden in office as tech stocks make gains.
The big earners include Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google cofounders, and even the European stock, all on the back of Biden’s takeover.
World’s richest person and Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, had a very good week, getting $10 billion richer to bring his net worth to $191.5 billion, according to Forbes.
It gave him an $8.3 billion lead over Tesla CEO Elon Musk (net worth: $183.2 billion), who briefly claimed the top spot this month before falling back to second place.
Even better for Bezos? His boost last week comes in part thanks to the departure of Donald Trump, a constant critic of Amazon and the Bezos-owned Washington Post.
President Joe Biden was inaugurated on Wednesday, sending tech stocks soaring on optimism over his administration’s Covid-19 vaccine and stimulus plans.
Amazon ended the week up 6.1%, Facebook gained 9.2% and Google parent Alphabet rose 9.5%, beating the S&P and Dow Jones Industrial Average’s weekly gains of 2% and 0.5%, respectively.
Jeff Bezos
On Inauguration Day, Amazon executive Dave Clark sent a letter to Biden offering Amazon’s resources to help distribute the vaccine.
“We are prepared to leverage our operations, information technology, and communications capabilities and expertise to assist your administration’s vaccination effort,” he wrote.
Clark also took the opportunity to advocate prioritizing vaccinating Amazon’s 800,000 employees, most of whom are essential frontline workers.
European stocks also rose on Biden’s inauguration, fueled by hopes that the new president will repair the relationships strained by the former president.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen went as far as tweeting on Wednesday that “the United States is back.” Bernard Arnault, chair of luxury conglomerate LVMH and the richest man in Europe, got$5.6 billion richer this week.
