Tag Archives: Jeff Bezos

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Jeff Bezos reclaims spot as world’s richest person from Elon Musk

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Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos reclaimed his title as the world’s richest person after he leapfrogged Tesla CEO Elon Musk, according to real-time data from Forbes.

Musk saw his net worth slide by $3.9 billion on Tuesday as Tesla shares closed at $796.22, down more than 2.4%. The 49-year-old entrepreneur surpassed Bezos in January to become the richest person in the world, on the back of Tesla’s surging share price and his generous pay package.

Musk gave back the title of world’s richest person to Bezos just as quickly as he rose in the rankings. Until last month, Bezos had been the richest man since 2017.

The Amazon founder’s personal wealth, which is mostly in Amazon stock, has skyrocketed in recent years along with the company’s share price. Bezos has continued to notch new wealth milestones. Last August, he became the first person to see their net worth surge above $200 billion and in 2018 he became the world’s richest man in recent history when his personal wealth climbed above $150 billion.

Bezos once again became the world’s richest person as he prepares to leave his post later this year. Earlier this month, Bezos announced he would turn the helm over to Amazon’s top cloud boss Andy Jassy. Bezos is expected to still keep an eye on the company he founded, but he will have more time to focus on other projects, including his Blue Origin rocket company and The Washington Post, as well as philanthropic ventures the Bezos Earth Fund and the Amazon Day 1 Fund.

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Sundar Pichai’s Tweet After Jeff Bezos Says He’ll Step Down As Amazon CEO

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Sundar Pichai also sent his best wishes for two of the passion projects of Jeff Bezos. (FILE)

New Delhi:

Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday congratulated Jeff Bezos and his successor Andy Jassy on their new roles after the Amazon founder announced his decision to stand aside later this year as chief executive of the company.

Mr Bezos said he will transition to the role of executive chair in the third quarter, handing over the CEO role to Andy Jassy, who heads Amazon Web Services.

The Indian-American top executive also sent his best wishes for two of the passion projects of the outgoing Amazon CEO – the Day 1 Fund and the Bezos Earth Fund.

Mr Bezos, in a letter to Amazon employees, said he would “stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives” but would pivot towards philanthropic initiatives, including his Day One Fund and Bezos Earth Fund, and other business ventures in space exploration and journalism.

Top executives and prominent figures at other major companies around the world have been sending their congratulations to Bezos and Jassy via Twitter.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, noting Mr Jassy’s accomplishments, said, “a well-deserved recognition of what you have accomplished”.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, also took to Twitter to say Amazon “could not be in better hands.”

Mr Bezos, 57, founded Amazon in his garage in 1994 and went on to grow it into a colossus that dominates online retail, with operations in streaming music and television, groceries, cloud computing, robotics, artificial intelligence and more.

Mr Jassy joined Amazon as a marketing manager in 1997 and in 2003 founded AWS, the cloud services division of the company which has been one of the most profitable but least-known units of the tech giant.



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AWS earnings Q4 2020

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Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon Web Services, speaks during the WSJDLive Global Technology Conference in Laguna Beach, California, on October 25, 2016

Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon’s cloud-computing business reported 28% revenue growth in the fourth quarter, falling short of analysts’ expectations. Amazon said Andy Jassy, who runs the cloud division, will succeed Jeff Bezos as CEO of Amazon in the third quarter of this year.

Amazon Web Services remains the market leader for cloud computing and storage that companies, governments and schools use to run websites and applications. While Microsoft and Google grew faster in the fourth quarter, they’re still well behind Amazon in serving businesses that are rapidly offloading their data.

Revenue at AWS climbed to $12.7 billion from $9.95 billion a year earlier, below the $12.83 billion consensus estimate among analysts polled by FactSet. AWS revenue represented 10% of Amazon’s total sales.

AWS continued to drive much of Amazon’s profit. Operating income increased 37% from a year earlier to $3.56 billion, but trailing the $3.75 billion FactSet consensus estimate. That means 52% of the company’s operating income can be attributed to AWS, compared with about two-thirds in the same period a year ago.

In the fourth quarter, AWS said it would allow customers to use two of its services for managing software containers in on-premises data centers, rather than exclusively in AWS facilities. It also introduced new services, including one for adding maps to applications and another for remotely using Apple’s MacOS operating system.

Nominations are open for the 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50, a list of private start-ups using breakthrough technology to become the next generation of great public companies. Submit by Friday, Feb. 12, at 3 pm EST.

WATCH: Cramer on court decision not to require Amazon to reinstate Parler

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Business

Jeff Bezos to step down as Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy to take over in Q3

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Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said on Twitter shortly after the announcement that he has questions for Jassy, hinting at an early hurdle when Jassy is installed.

Bezos said he will stay engaged in important Amazon projects but will also have more time to focus on the Bezos Earth Fund, his Blue Origin spaceship company, The Washington Post and the Amazon Day 1 Fund.

“As much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition,” Bezos said in his internal announcement. “Millions of customers depend on us for our services, and more than a million employees depend on us for their livelihoods. Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming. When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention on anything else.”

Industry CEOs and Amazon competitors congratulated Bezos and Jassy on the coming transition, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calling Jassy’s promotion “well-deserved.”

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai offered Bezos “best wishes” on his other projects.

Fellow Amazonians:

I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence.

This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, “What’s the internet?” Blessedly, I haven’t had to explain that in a long while.

Today, we employ 1.3 million talented, dedicated people, serve hundreds of millions of customers and businesses, and are widely recognized as one of the most successful companies in the world.

How did that happen? Invention. Invention is the root of our success. We’ve done crazy things together, and then made them normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more. If you get it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. People yawn. And that yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive.

I don’t know of another company with an invention track record as good as Amazon’s, and I believe we are at our most inventive right now. I hope you are as proud of our inventiveness as I am. I think you should be.

As Amazon became large, we decided to use our scale and scope to lead on important social issues. Two high-impact examples: our $15 minimum wage and the Climate Pledge. In both cases, we staked out leadership positions and then asked others to come along with us. In both cases, it’s working. Other large companies are coming our way. I hope you’re proud of that as well.

I find my work meaningful and fun. I get to work with the smartest, most talented, most ingenious teammates. When times have been good, you’ve been humble. When times have been tough, you’ve been strong and supportive, and we’ve made each other laugh. It is a joy to work on this team.

As much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition. Millions of customers depend on us for our services, and more than a million employees depend on us for their livelihoods. Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it’s consuming. When you have a responsibility like that, it’s hard to put attention on anything else. As Exec Chair I will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and my other passions. I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring. I’m super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have.

Amazon couldn’t be better positioned for the future. We are firing on all cylinders, just as the world needs us to. We have things in the pipeline that will continue to astonish. We serve individuals and enterprises, and we’ve pioneered two complete industries and a whole new class of devices. We are leaders in areas as varied as machine learning and logistics, and if an Amazonian’s idea requires yet another new institutional skill, we’re flexible enough and patient enough to learn it.

Keep inventing, and don’t despair when at first the idea looks crazy. Remember to wander. Let curiosity be your compass. It remains Day 1.

Jeff



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Business

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, World’s Richest, Shade Each Other Over…

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The statement followed a tweet from Musk, the richest person according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The world’s two richest men are duking it out before U.S. regulators over celestial real estate for their satellite fleets.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to operate Starlink communications satellites at a lower orbit than first planned.

Jeff Bezos’s Amazon.com Inc. says the move would risk interference and collisions with its planned Kuiper satellites, which like Starlink are designed to beam internet service from space.

A dispute that would normally be confined to regulatory filings is spilling into public view, in a spat that showcases the large personalities involved as billionaires chase dreams in the sky.

“It is SpaceX’s proposed changes that would hamstring competition among satellite systems,” Amazon tweeted Tuesday from its official news account. “It is clearly in SpaceX’s interest to smother competition in the cradle if they can, but it is certainly not in the public’s interest.”

Jeff Bezos’s Amazon.com Inc. says the move would risk interference and collisions with its planned Kuiper satellites, which like Starlink are designed to beam internet service from space.

The statement followed a tweet from Musk, the richest person according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“It does not serve the public to hamstring Starlink today for an Amazon satellite system that is at best several years away from operation,” Musk said in a tweeted reply to coverage by CNBC journalist Michael Sheetz.

Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has launched more than 1,000 satellites for its Starlink internet service and is signing up early customers in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. Amazon last year won FCC permission for a fleet of 3,236 satellites and has yet to launch any.

Amazon earlier urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s request for lower orbits. It said the change would put SpaceX satellites in the midst of the Kuiper System orbits, according to filings at the agency.

SpaceX pushed back in calls to the FCC, saying its plans wouldn’t increase interference for what it termed Amazon’s “still nascent plans.”

A lower orbit allows quicker internet service because the signal doesn’t travel as far. SpaceX told the FCC that having the satellites closer to Earth lessens the risk of space debris because they would fall out of orbit more quickly than higher spacecraft.

SpaceX eventually plans to operate some 12,000 satellites and has won FCC authorization for about 4,400 birds, including 1,584 at 550 kilometers — where its satellites currently orbit. The company is seeking permission to stage another 2,824 satellites at the same approximate altitude, rather than twice as high as originally proposed.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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Tesla CEO donates to carbon capture technology prize

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GRUENHEIDE, GERMANY – SEPTEMBER 03: Tesla head Elon Musk talks to the press as he arrives to to have a look at the construction site of the new Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin on September 03, 2020 near Gruenheide, Germany. Musk is currently in Germany where he met with vaccine maker CureVac on Tuesday, with which Tesla has a cooperation to build devices for producing RNA vaccines, as well as German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier yesterday.

Maja Hitij | Getty Images

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced that he is donating $100 million towards a prize for the best technology that can capture carbon dioxide.

Musk, who overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person this month, made the announcement on Twitter late Thursday, saying he would share more details next week.

“Am donating $100M towards a prize for best carbon capture technology,” Musk tweeted to his 42.7 million followers.

Carbon capture is the process of trapping waste carbon dioxide either directly from the air, or just before it gets emitted from factories and power plants.

With the latter, the first step is often to install solvent filters on factory chimneys, which catch the carbon emissions before they’re released into the Earth’s atmosphere. Once captured, carbon dioxide can then be shipped or piped somewhere it can’t escape from (often deep underground) to prevent it contributing to global warming.

Most of the captured carbon dioxide remains underground, but some of it can also used to make plastics and fizzy drinks.

Why is carbon capture needed?

Global carbon dioxide emissions have soared over the last 100 years, leading to unprecedented global warming and climate change.

There are currently around 20 carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) projects operating commercially worldwide, according to the International Energy Agency.

The agency said that 30 new projects had been agreed since 2017, but stressed that many more were needed to prevent carbon emissions from raising the temperature on Earth by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The IEA believes CCUS projects could reduce carbon emissions by almost a fifth, while also slashing the cost of tackling the climate crisis by 70%. Adapting heavy industry to run on clean energy is relatively difficult and expensive compared to installing carbon capture systems.

U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged to put more of a focus on cutting emissions than his predecessor and said he wants the U.S. to be carbon neutral by 2050.

‘Plant more trees’

The prize that Musk has said he will contribute to is connected to the Xprize Foundation, TechCrunch reported, citing an anonymous source. The foundation is a nonprofit that puts on competitions to promote and support innovation.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Musk has a total net worth of $201 billion, while Bezos has $193 billion. Microsoft founder Bill Gates is the next wealthiest person, with a total net worth of $134 billion.

Musk recently asked his Twitter followers what he should do with his money.

“Critical feedback is always super appreciated, as well as ways to donate money that really make a difference (way harder than it seems),” he tweeted Jan. 8.

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