Topline
About $24 billion was added to Jeff Bezos’ net worth on Friday as Amazon shares surged to a record high, fueled by an earnings report that bested Wall Street’s expectations with “strong demand” for AI offerings.
Key Facts
Shares of Amazon rose 11.5% to around $248.60 shortly after trading opened Friday, following a 3.2% decline on Thursday before the company’s earnings report was released.
Friday’s rally for Amazon’s stock paces what would be the largest single-day gain since April, when shares jumped nearly 12%, and a further surge would approach Amazon’s 12.1% rally in November 2022.
Amazon on Thursday reported $180.2 billion in revenues and earnings per share of $1.95, topping economists’ forecasts of $177.9 billion and $1.57, according to FactSet.
A surge in earnings growth is largely attributed to the growth of Amazon Web Services, CEO Andy Jassy said, as AWS sales rose 20% annually to $33 billion, in addition to “strong demand” for Amazon’s AI offerings, with a $11 billion AI data center launched this week for Anthropic’s AI models.
Forbes Valuation
Bezos is the world’s third-richest person with a fortune valued at $259.4 billion, according to Forbes’ latest estimates. Bezos, who holds 8% equity in Amazon, had his net worth swell by roughly $24 billion (10.2%) as of Friday morning, after a $6.6 billion slide as shares dropped Thursday.
Big Number
53%. That’s how much Amazon shares have increased since hitting a low of $161.38 in April, after the stock set a fresh record above $240 in February, as Amazon’s shares have now risen more than 12% on the year. Shares were previously up 1.6% on the year following Thursday’s decline.
Key Background
Amazon, like most of the world’s largest firms, has shifted its strategy to build on AI products and cloud infrastructure as Nvidia, Google and Microsoft feed growing demand. Earlier this week, Amazon announced it would lay off 14,000 corporate employees in a push to make the company less bureaucratic, and Jassy said the move was not “financially driven” or driven by AI, “right now, at least.” Economists have applauded Amazon’s growth, despite earlier concerns as President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff policies potentially affected the e-commerce giant’s business. Analysts from Pivotal Research said Thursday that Amazon has a “deep moat around their core businesses driven by their unmatched scale,” noting the company appears to have “numerous healthy organic growth opportunities” bolstered by its “high-margin” cloud service.
