Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has to spend $28 million a day just to keep from getting richer

Jeff Bezos is rich. That much is known. However, the scope of the Amazon.com founder’s filthy richness — with a net worth of $150 billion by Bloomberg’s reckoning — against the backdrop of a yawning inequality gap, is part of the theme of a recent article in The Atlantic. But perhaps one factoid catches the eye in the piece:

‘[Bezos] needs to spend roughly $28 million a day just to keep from accumulating more wealth.’

Wow!

The 54-year-old’s net worth has ballooned by more than $50 billion this year, according to the Bloomberg article published in mid-July. That gain came as Amazon’s shares AMZN, +1.11%  have surged. As of Wednesday’s close they were up 54% this year, and have rallied by more than 80% over the past 12 months, according to FactSet data. By comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained a much more muted 2.5% so far this year, and 15.3% over the past year, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.10% has advanced 5.2% year to date and has grown nearly 14% over a 12-month period. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +0.46% a benchmark laden with technology and internet-related names, has climbed almost 12% in the first seven months of the year and more than 21% in the past 12 months.

Bezos is Amazon.com’s largest shareholder, with some 80 million shares, equivalent to a more than 16% stake in the consumer-discretionary giant, which boasts a total market vale of about $880 billion.

It is hard to say how The Atlantic calculated its estimates of how much Bezos would need to spend to avoid getting any richer in the article, which mostly focuses on a U.S. financial system that tends to foster a concentration of wealth among a tiny few.

However, it is clear that Bezos can lose wealth just as fast as his net worth has skyrocketed, and since his fortune is integrally tied to his business — rightly or wrongly — the tide can turn rather swiftly.

That said, it might take quite a blow to knock the richest man on Earth since 1982, according to Bloomberg, off his perch.

Providing critical information for the U.S. trading day. Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Need to Know newsletter. Sign up here.