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Jeff Bezos & Mark Zuckerberg Became Richer By $14 Billion, What Coronavirus?

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Monit Khanna
Monit KhannaUpdated on Aug 04, 2020, 16:23 IST

It is no news that COVID-19 has severely affected economies around the world, whether it is India or the US. 

Companies are having a hard time making ends meet with most of their manpower working from home while laying off people left, right and centre. However, looking at how some tech companies in the US are faring, the picture looks quite the opposite.

mark zuckerberg, jeff bezos Reuters

Tracking the wealth of billionaires, Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index highlighted how Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and others have made billions of dollars last Friday. On Monday, Facebook had climbed 8.2 percent to a record high of $253.67, adding around $7 billion in Zuckerberg’s pockets. Amazon, on the other hand, came to 3.7 percent at $3,164.68 while adding around $7 billion. 

Another company that did well on Friday was Cupertino giant Apple, however, Tim Cook didn’t make it to Bloomberg’s rankings. However, it is important to note that Cook, much like other CEOs on the Bloomberg list make most of the money tied to daily fluctuations in the stock market. It is likely that his wealth has also increased considerably depending on the stock options awarded to him. 

These earnings come straight after the antitrust hearing held by the Judicial Committee involving tech moguls Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook to answer concerns on anti-competitive practices being adopted by the companies. We saw Alphabet CEO answer questions related to stealing from competitors while Bezos helped himself to a snack.

antitrust hearing Reuters

Another report by the New York Times has highlighted how even though companies are going through a tough ordeal due to the novel coronavirus, with layoffs getting more frequent, many CEOs aren’t letting go much of their pay to make ends meet. 

The report highlights that they’re in fact only giving thin slivers of their overall compensation, and how the ultra rich among the world of tech remain relatively untouched by any damage COVID-19 pandemic is causing to the global economy at large.

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