Amazon owner Jeff Bezos has furthered his incredible wealth after the Pentagon cancelled a contract with Microsoft.
For a brief time in January, Elon Musk was the richest person in the world with $210 billion (USD). However, Jeff Bezos quickly reclaimed this position as the share price of Amazon continued to soar by 15.4% in 2021.
Bezos has now put further distance between himself and other billionaires as Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index notes he is now worth $211 billion (USD). This puts the Amazon CEO $30 billion ahead of his closest rival Elon Musk and makes him the richest man in modern history.
The increase in wealth comes after the Pentagon announced it is cancelling the $10 billion JEDI contract with Microsoft. The contract was agreed upon during the presidency of Donald Trump, but there were claims that the president exerted improper pressure on military officials to ensure Amazon did not get the contract.
On the back of this, the contract was put on hold as Amazon filed a lawsuit. This has given the Pentagon time to reassess its technology needs.
