As Bezos Heads Toward Trillionaire, Outrage

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos found himself the target of attacks from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, and a lot of social media users on Thursday as outlets highlighted an analysis suggesting he'll become the first ever trillionaire. Business website Comparisun determined the 56-year-old—with a current net worth of about $144 billion—would nab that title in just six years. It calculated each billionaire's average growth in net worth over the last five years and applied that rate to future years. Essentially, if Bezos' net worth continues to grow at an average of 34%, he'll become a trillionaire by 2026, per USA Today.

Watson Coleman accused Bezos of "atrocious greed." Warren said it was "immoral" that Bezos was "on track to become the world's first trillionaire in the middle of a pandemic" while "Amazon is ending overtime pay for warehouse and delivery workers." But saying Bezos is on track to become a trillionaire "is quite a stretch," according to Theodore Schleifer at Vox. "Past performance … isn't indicative of future performance" and "the American economy has been on a decade-long bull run that won't replicate easily," he writes. Still, Bezos owns 11% of Amazon, whose stock has climbed 560% since 2015. His net worth has climbed by more than $28 billion in the last year alone, despite a $35 billion divorce settlement. (More Jeff Bezos stories.)