Jeff Bezos overtakes Elon Musk as world’s richest person with $246b net worth

Jeff Bezos is back on top as the outgoing Amazon CEO took back his crown as the world’s richest person, overtaking Elon Musk’s reign.

Jeff Bezos is back on top.

The outgoing Amazon CEO took back his crown as the world’s richest person, bringing Tesla chief Elon Musk’s reign to an end after just six weeks.

The changing of the guard happened even though both billionaires’ fortunes shrank on Tuesday as their respective companies’ stock prices slipped.

Bezos, 57, saw his net worth tick down by $US372 million ($A480 million) to $US191 billion ($A246 billion) thanks to a roughly 0.3 per cent drop in Amazon shares, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.

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Bezos has once again overtaken Musk as the richest billionaire in the world. Picture: Brendan Smialowski and Mandel Ngan/AFP

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But a 2.4 per cent tumble in Tesla’s stock wiped nearly $US4.6 billion ($A6 billion) off Musk’s wealth, putting the 49-year-old tech tycoon in second place with a fortune of $US190 billion ($A245 billion), Bloomberg’s ranking shows.

Bezos reclaimed his title just about two weeks after announcing he would step down as Amazon’s chief executive in the third quarter of this year. He’ll still be the executive chairman of the e-commerce empire he founded 27 years ago.

Bezos’ 11 per cent stake in Amazon is valued at $US174 billion ($A224 billion), accounting for more than 90 per cent of his total fortune, according to Bloomberg data. He’s gradually sold shares in recent years in part to fund Blue Origin, his space-exploration firm that competes with Musk’s SpaceX.

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Tesla founder Elon Musk overtook Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest man for six weeks. Picture: Odd Andersen/AFP

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Musk had ended Bezos’ three-year reign as the world’s richest man in early January amid a staggering rally in Tesla’s stock price. Shares in the electric-car maker have climbed about 13 per cent this year despite Tuesday’s drop, helping add more than $US20 billion ($A26 billion) to Musk’s net worth along the way.

Musk made his stint at the top of the rich list memorable by cementing his power to move markets with Twitter posts. He caused surges in the prices of stocks such as Etsy and Signal Advance and drove up the price of Dogecoin, the meme-inspired cryptocurrency.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission