Amazon's Founder Made $7B in 45 Minutes Yesterday

Jeff Bezos is having a pretty good month, even by the standards of stratospherically wealthy tech tycoons. Last night, just days after the Amazon.com founder celebrated the company's 20th anniversary, he made $7 billion in under 45 minutes as the company's share price soared in after-hours trading, reports the Guardian. The 18% share price gain came after the company surprised analysts by reporting a large profit and a 26% rise in North American sales year-on-year, CNBC reports. Bezos is now the fifth-richest person in the world with an estimated fortune of $50.3 billion, according to Forbes.

Amazon has now passed Walmart to become the highest-valued retail company in the world, and in a press release, Bezos lists many recent successes, including Prime Day, the establishment of Amazon Business and Amazon Mexico, and new agreements for solar and wind farms. But one glaring failure for Amazon appears to be its relationship with authors, the Guardian notes. Earlier this month, a group of authors including Ursula Le Guin and Malcolm Gladwell joined the American Booksellers Association in calling for the Department of Justice to investigate the firm's "abuse of its dominance in the world of books." (Last fall, analysts wondered how the company could rein in Bezos.)