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American billionaire Jeff Bezos' fortune has jumped $137 billion in a single year to $378 billion, according to Forbes' newly published list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, which also confirms the Amazon founder as the richest person in Florida nearly three years after he left Seattle.
The rise from $241 billion on last year's list keeps Bezos at No. 2 in the country. Only Elon Musk, valued at $908 billion after briefly passing $1 trillion in June on the back of SpaceX's initial public offering, ranks higher. Alphabet co-founder Larry Page is third at $278 billion and the richest person in California.
Bezos is one of 48 Florida residents on the list, according to the state breakdown as reported by the Times of India. Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan is eighth in the state at $16.5 billion, and President Donald Trump appears at about $7 billion.
Why he left Seattle
Bezos announced the move in November 2023 in an Instagram post. He had lived in Seattle since 1994, when he started Amazon in a garage, and said leaving was an emotional decision. "Seattle, you will always have a piece of my heart," he wrote.
He gave two reasons. His parents had recently moved back to Miami, where he had lived as a boy, and he wanted to be near them. Blue Origin, his rocket company, was also shifting more of its operations to Cape Canaveral. "Lauren and I love Miami," he added, referring to Lauren Sánchez, whom he married in 2025.
He did not mention taxes. Florida levies no state income tax and no tax on capital gains, while Washington began taxing large capital gains in 2022. Bezos sold billions of dollars of Amazon stock in the months after relocating, and analysts at the time estimated the move spared him a substantial state tax bill on those sales.
A fortune still tied to Amazon
Most of Bezos' wealth remains in Amazon shares, and the company's stock has climbed over the past year on strong cloud growth and demand for artificial intelligence computing. That, more than anything he has done in Florida, explains the $137 billion increase.
He has kept selling. Bezos has disclosed a series of planned share sales since 2024, using the proceeds to fund Blue Origin, his Bezos Earth Fund and other ventures, while still holding a stake worth well over $200 billion.
The Forbes 400 measures wealth at a point in time, and the gap between Bezos and Musk has widened sharply since the SpaceX listing. Bezos, by contrast, has grown his fortune the older-fashioned way, by owning a lot of a company that keeps getting bigger.
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