Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is now number one in Forbes 400 list of richest Americans. He replaced Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates who had been holding the number one spot since 1994.
Forbes said Bezos currently has a net worth of $160 billion compared to Gates' $97 billion. The latter was pushed down to number 2 for the first time in almost 24 years.
This was not the first time, however, that Bezos replaced Gates from being number 1. Back in July 2017, he overtook the same spot from Gates for Forbes Real-Time Billionaires Ranking.
Bezos net worth has dramatically increased from $75.5 billion in 2017. The major driver of his wealth is Amazon's stock price that soared 104 percent since 2017 according to Forbes.
Bezos first made it to The Forbes 400 list in 1998. At the time, he was ranked at 102 with a net worth of $1.6 billion. Although he did not make it to the top 10 immediately that year, it was only four years after he founded Amazon and just a year after the company's initial public offering. It took Bezos about 16 years to be able to break into the list's top 10.
By 2015, the Amazon founder became the fourth-richest American with a net worth of $47 billion. Bezos net worth exceeded the $100-billion mark back in November 2017.
Meanwhile at number 3 for this year's list is Warren Buffet who is most popularly known as an activist investor. He has a net worth of $88.3 billion.
Next on the list is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with a net worth of $61 billion. Oracle's Larry Ellison is at number 5 with his net worth of $58.4 billion. Google's Larry Page makes it to number 6 with $53.8 billion.
Tied for number 7 are the Koch brothers Charles and David with $53.5 billion. At number 9 is Google's Sergey Brin with $52.4 billion. Finally at number 10 is Michael Bloomberg with 51.8 billion.
The elite list welcomes 15 newcomers this year. Among them is Ripple Chris Larsen, the first of the 400 to become a billionaire through cryptocurrency. Another newcomer is Drew Houston, the founder of Dropbox.
Lynsi Snyder of In-N-Out is now the youngest woman on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans.
Forbes said an individual needs to have a minimum net worth of $2.1 billion to be included in the list. With this, as much as 204 billionaires did not qualify to be ranked for Forbes 400.
Interestingly, U.S. President Donald Trump fell to number 259 this year. Forbes said Trump currently has a net worth of $3.1 billion.
