To make sure you never miss out on your favourite NEW stories, we're happy to send you some reminders

Click 'OK' then 'Allow' to enable notifications

Bill Gates Has Overtaken Jeff Bezos As The World's Richest Person

Bill Gates Has Overtaken Jeff Bezos As The World's Richest Person

It's the latest twist in a fairly crass race between the two tech bosses

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

Bill Gates has replaced Jeff Bezos as the world's richest man with a fortune of $110bn.

That's after stocks in Bezos' company Amazon fell away and Gates' Microsoft secured a gigantic $10bn contract from the Pentagon.

That means that for the first time in two years Gates can be considered the world's wealthiest man.

As of Friday, the Bloomberg Billionaire Index reckons that the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist now has a total net worth of $110bn, which is frankly an obscene amount of money.

Gates managed to take back the title because, as it turns out, Microsoft are having a massive year so far.

Bill Gates.
PA

In fact, shares in the company are up almost 48 percent and they've recently gained around $485m, which has helped to greatly boost the tech company's value.

Even more galling for Bezos, Microsoft actually beat Amazon to the Pentagon cloud computing contract that eventually tipped the scales in Gates' favour.

The contract in question, which is called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure -that's JEDI, to you and I - will see Microsoft provide all of the cloud storage for the Department of Defense for a 10 year period.

That's a hell of a lot of sensitive military data and technology to look after, which is why it is such a massive contract.

Jeff Bezos.
PA

The decision to award the contract to Microsoft represents a huge loss for Amazon in the ongoing battle between two of the world's largest tech firms.

Despite this loss, we shouldn't feel too sorry - or sorry at all - for Jeff Bezos.

Bezos is still worth about $109bn, despite the fact that Amazon's profits have been down almost 28 percent in recent times.

At the peak of his wealth, Bezos was worth a maximum of $166bn.

To make matters worse - again, not exactly heartbreakingly worse - for Bezos, he also recently divorced his wife Mackenzie, which hit his fortune significantly.

Jeff Bezos recently divorced his wife Mackenzie.
PA

His ex-wife received 25 per cent of Bezos' stake in Amazon and is one of the company's biggest shareholders.

She's now worth $35bn herself.

Mackenzie Bezos recently signed up to the Giving Pledge, and will donate her wealth to charity. In a statement, she said: "I have a disproportionate amount of money to share. My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care. But I won't wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty."

Let's hope they all do the same until there are no more billionaires and no more people in need.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: World News, Interesting, Technology