American billionaire Jeff Bezos adds $13.7 billion as Amazon shares jump after the US midterms

American billionaire Jeff Bezos added about $13.7 billion to his fortune on Wednesday as Amazon shares jumped in a post-election rally, winning back nearly all of the paper losses he suffered after the company’s quarterly results last week.

Bezos’s net worth rose to $384.2 billion as of midday in New York, according to Forbes, making him the biggest gainer among the world’s richest people on the day. He remains the world’s second-richest person behind Elon Musk.

Amazon shares closed up 6.1% at $266.03, lifting the company’s market value to about $2.7 trillion, according to The Motley Fool. Trading volume reached about 93 million shares, more than double the daily average.

The rally reversed much of last week’s selloff. On Oct. 30, Billionaires.Africa reported that Bezos lost about $14 billion as Amazon shares fell almost 7% after its third-quarter results showed heavy spending on artificial intelligence had pushed free cash flow into negative territory.

Investors took a different view after the midterm elections. Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, and the end of election uncertainty sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 3% and the Nasdaq up 1.4%.

Analysts also reassessed Amazon’s position in the AI race. Amazon Web Services grew sales 39% to $46 billion in the third quarter. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius said election results are unlikely to change the data center outlook, though local moratoriums could affect a large share of planned US capacity.

Such restrictions could push more business toward the largest cloud providers, which already operate vast networks of data centers, according to The Motley Fool. That argument helped lift both Amazon and Microsoft, which rose 6.7% to a record high.

Bezos was not the only tech billionaire to benefit. Larry Page added $8.3 billion and Sergey Brin $7.6 billion as Alphabet shares rose nearly 5%, while Steve Ballmer gained $8.8 billion on Microsoft’s rally. The Walton family also added nearly $15 billion as Walmart shares rose about 4.5%.

Others lost ground. Musk shed $34.5 billion as Tesla and SpaceX shares fell, and Michael Dell lost $11.3 billion as Dell Technologies slid 8% on concerns about tighter data center rules.

Bezos owns about 8.1% of Amazon through roughly 880 million directly held shares, so the stock’s moves drive most of the changes in his fortune. He has also been building other businesses, including space company Blue Origin, which he said in October is heading toward an initial public offering.

Overall, Wednesday’s rally left Bezos well positioned heading into the final weeks of the year, even after a volatile stretch for Amazon shares.