Jeff Bezos overtakes Bill Gates to become the world's richest man

Jeff Bezos became the richest man in the world after Amazon's shares surged which increased his wealth to more than $90 billion, according to the calculations by CNBC. This puts him ahead of Bill Gates to become the richest man in the world.

On Friday morning, Amazon stock opened up more than 8 percent higher than Thursday’s close, adding nearly $7 billion to Bezos’ net worth. But thanks to a 7 percent surge in Microsoft’s stock overnight, it wasn’t quite enough to put him ahead of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaire Rankings. Bezos had a net worth of $89.7 billion, as of the start of trading on Friday, while Gates had a net worth of $90.1 billion, up $550 million from Thursday.

Then by 10:15 a.m. Eastern, Amazon stock had climbed nearly 2 percent since the market opened, adding $900 million to Bezos’ net worth and putting him in the Number 1 spot with a net worth of $90.6 billion versus Gates’ $90.1 billion at that time.

At the close of US markets Friday, Bezos had a net worth of $93.8 billion, becoming the world's richest man with $5.1 billion ahead of Gates on the Bloomberg index, a daily ranking of the world’s 500 richest people. Gates had been the world’s richest person since 2013.

However, this isn’t Bezos’ first time as numero uno. He became the richest man for the first time in July – but his reign only lasted a day. On July 27, Amazon’s share prices topped $1,050 and Bezos’ paper fortune soared past $90 billion. But after Amazon’s share prices slipped, Bezos fell back to second place behind Gates. Given Amazon's dominance in so many markets, Bezos will look to increase the gap between him and Gates.