During the pandemic, Jeff Bezos was both literally and symbolically flying high. He achieved a net worth of more than $200 billion in August 2020, making him the first person on Earth to do so. A little under a year later, in July 2021, he completely left Earth when he boarded a spaceship with the cosmic company he had developed on the side.
Bezos’ personal wealth is now stuck in the low $100 billion range due to the collapse of tech stocks; Amazon shares have lost more than one-third of their value since the year’s beginning. In fact, as of September 30th, Forbes estimated his net worth to be just $138.2 billion, and this is all in the first year without stimulus payments to keep him afloat.
Despite experiencing 12-figure heartbreak on a regular basis, Bezos nevertheless manages to live a lavish life. Here is a peek at the man who revolutionized global shopping’s opulent lifestyle.
Bezos Cobbles Together Mega-Mansions Made of Regular Mansions
A few years after founding Amazon, Bezos began what would eventually become one of his signature business strategies: purchasing groups of nearby houses to build enormous mansion-colonies.
According to Architectural Digest, in the 1990s, before he had real money, Bezos purchased two homes with a combined square footage of about 29,000 on 5.3 acres in Seattle’s affluent Medina neighborhood, where Bill Gates resides. Later that year, when he acquired a third connected property, he added 24,000 square feet and 5 acres. This time, the mansion in the neighborhood was a Tudor-style residence with a $53 million price tag.
Bezos paid $24.45 million on a Beverly Hills mansion/compound prior to the Warner estate deal. A few years later, paid $12.9 million to purchase the mansion/compound next door.
His most impressive house construction, however, was done in Manhattan, where he pieced together a group of five apartments in the upscale Madison Square Park apartment complex at 212 Fifth Avenue. He owns space in the structure totaling about 20,000 square feet and $120 million. He paid $80 million for the first three as a package, then added the other two separately.
Bezos’ Superyacht has a support Yacht of it’s own
Bezos made headlines in May 2021 for his own plans for summertime sunbathing, just as the nation was preparing for the first summer that wasn’t entirely postponed. According to Bloomberg, Bezos is constructing a 417-foot, $500 million yacht.
The Netherlands, the superyacht-building Mecca where it was born, is reportedly intending to demolish a historic bridge solely so the record-breaking boat may sail out of Rotterdam. The boat was absurdly large, even by the standards of billionaire superyachts.
A man must have a helicopter on his yacht, so Bezos hired a support vessel to sail next to his with a helipad because those sails also made it difficult for a helicopter to land. The “shadow vessel,” which is 246 feet long and can hold up to 45 crew members and guests, is no slouch either.
Bezos’ Real Estate Portfolio
Jeff Bezos had reportedly been secretly building up a portfolio of properties worth an estimated $578 million at the end of 2021, according to Architectural Digest. With over $80 million left over, that would be enough to build a second record-breaking superyacht, or even a second shadow vessel, depending on how much shadow vessels are selling for in these inflationary times.
His top real estate assets include: A 30,000-acre Texas ranch with an unknown price tag, A 10-acre Beverly Hills estate with a 13,600 square foot Georgian-style home. Bezos spent a record-breaking $165 million to acquire the “Jack Warner estate” from media billionaire David Geffen and his most recent purchase was the most expensive house on Maui, Hawaii, for $78 million.
Bezoz Dropped $5.5 Billion To Spend 4 Minutes in Space
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos invested $5.5 billion in his private space company Blue Origin, according to Fortune, and it was Blue Origin that launched the tech tycoon into space. The hangtime works out to nearly $1.38 billion every minute.