In one day Bezos came close to the world’s richest man

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has become the world’s second-richest man adding $1.5 billion to his fortune after Amazon gained $9 billion in market value during trading on Wednesday.  

The 53-year-old has a net worth of $75.6 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and surpassed Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet ($75.5 billion) and Inditex fashion group chairman Amancio Ortega ($74.1 billion) for the second spot. 

The bump is wealth comes after Amazon shares rose $18.32 on Wednesday – just one day after the company purchased the Middle East's biggest online retailer Souq.com for an undisclosed amount. Amazon and Souq.com said they expect the sale to close this year.   
In buying Souq.com, Amazon will leapfrog into the crucial Mideast markets of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, where the Dubai-based retailer already has local operations.

While Buffett has long been one of the richest people in the world, Bezos has had a rapid rise to the top ranks of the three comma club over the past few years as Amazon stock has skyrocketed. Five years ago, Bezos was the 26th richest person in the world with an $18.4 billion fortune on the 2012 Billionaires List. Then, Bezos cracked the ranks of the top 10 richest people in the world for the first time on the 2016 World's Billionaires List with a $45.2 billion fortune.

Bezos first appeared on FORBES’ ranking of the 400 richest Americans in 1998 with a $1.6 billion fortune, one year after Amazon's IPO.

To help put Bezos’ buying power in perspective, if he really wanted to make shopping, the 53-year old entrepreneur could: buy all 32 NFL teams, the entire company Tesla or easily buy United Continental, Delta and JetBlue. The three airlines had a total market cap of about $64 billion.