Topline
Jeff Bezos became the world’s third-richest person again on Tuesday while reclaiming the spot from Google cofounder Sergey Brin, who surpassed Bezos earlier this month, as Amazon shares rose after announcing it would shutter dozens of retail stores to expand its Whole Foods Market business.
The two billionaires have swapped places multiple times in recent weeks.
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Key Facts
Shares of Amazon rose 2.4% to above $244 as of 3:15 p.m. EST, while Alphabet shares increased slightly (0.6%).
An uptick for Amazon’s stock followed an announcement Tuesday that the company would close all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores to shift its focus to online same-day delivery service and open more than 100 new Whole Foods stores in the coming years.
Amazon noted its Amazon Go and Fresh locations failed to create a “truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” and that some locations would be converted into Whole Foods stores.
Wedbush Securities analyst Scott Devitt wrote Tuesday that Amazon’s decision was an “important step” for its grocery strategy, adding Amazon has “not only expanded its fulfillment and delivery initiatives,” but it is also “accelerating” plans to expand to more physical stores to compete with Walmart, Target and Costco.
Forbes Valuation
Bezos’ net worth increased by $4.8 billion (1.9%) to $254 billion, ranking him the third-wealthiest person in the world, ahead of Brin ($253.1 billion), according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires list. Brin’s fellow Google cofounder Larry Page ($274.3 billion) ranks second behind Tesla’s Elon Musk, whose fortune dropped $2.7 billion to $775.2 billion. Earlier on Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg overtook Larry Ellison to become the world’s fifth-richest person, with a net worth estimated at $230.1 billion, above Ellison’s $221.9 billion.
Surprising Fact
Alphabet’s stock rose 65% in 2025, the largest single-year increase for the company since shares surged nearly 93% in 2009.
Tangent
Amazon was among the winners across the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, with broader gains across tech stocks Micron Technology (6.1%), Intel (3.4%), Microsoft (2.3%), Broadcom (2%), Apple (1.6%) and Nvidia (1.4%). The Nasdaq was up 1.1% as of just after 3:20 p.m. EST, besting other major indexes.
Key Background
Brin and Page rose among the ranks of the world’s wealthiest as Alphabet emerged as a leader in AI last year. The company was praised for the release of Google’s Gemini 3, the latest iteration of its AI model, after Alphabet unveiled the seventh generation of its AI chips. Amazon trailed the S&P 500 last year, rising just 5%, compared to the index’s 18% gain, though the company reported a roughly 20% sales growth for its cloud computing service and a more than 20% boost in advertising revenue through its third quarter. Wall Street anticipates Amazon to again report a surge in fourth-quarter revenue to $211 billion, up from $187.8 billion over the same period the previous year, according to FactSet.
Further Reading
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2026/01/27/jeff-bezos-retakes-worlds-no-3-richest-title-passing-sergey-brin-after-amazon-shutters-retail-stores/
