Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Friday reclaimed his world’s richest person title from his Amazon counterpart Jeff Bezos, who has held the position for the past two years.
Gates’ resurgence is partly attributed to the Pentagon’s October 25th decision to award a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft over Amazon.
Microsoft’s shares have since scaled four percent, pushing Gates’ fortune to $110 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Amazon’s stock slipped two percent since the announcement, putting Bezos’s net worth at $108.7 billion.
Microsoft has surged 48 percent this year, boosting the value of Gates’ 1 percent stake while the rest of his wealth is derived from share sales and investments made over the years by his family office, Cascade.
Bezos would be far richer if he and former wife, MacKenzie Bezos did not divorce. The couple announced their split in January this year, with MacKenzie getting 25 percent of their Amazon holdings in July.
Gates would also have maintained the top spot if he had not given a significant amount of his wealth to philanthropy. The 64-year-old has donated over $35 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation since 1994.
