Regardless of how great of a Thanksgiving holiday you had this year, chances are it pales in comparison with that of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who has just become the newest (and only!) $100 billionaire. Thanks to optimism for Black Friday sales, Amazon’s shares rose more than 2 percent, which meant Bezos’ fortune went up by $2.4 billion to $100.3 billion, according to Bloomberg. That makes the 53-year-old owner of the Washington Post the first billionaire to pass the $100-billion mark since 1999, when Bill Gates had a 12-figure net worth.
While 2017 may have been a depressing year for most of us, Bezos is likely to look back on it fondly as his fortune rose a whopping $32.6 billion this year. But with great power comes great responsibility and the rise in his net worth is only going to increase calls for the world’s richest person to start getting serious about charity. Unlike the number two and three on the list of richest people in the world — Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, respectively — Bezos has given comparatively little to charity over the years.
Bezos, who surpassed Gates as the world’s richest man in October, suggested he knew he needed to up his philanthropy earlier this year when he took to Twitter to ask for ideas. “I’m thinking I want much of my philanthropic activity to be helping people in the here and now—short term—at the intersection of urgent need and lasting impact,” he wrote in June. He got more than 50,000 suggestions from his tweet but so far has failed to conspicuously act on any of them.
