Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has become the richest person ever last week, after his fortune topped $151billion. The hefty figure, which is higher than some countries’ GDP, is the largest fortune Forbes has ever registered in three decades of calculating billionaires’ net worth.

The American owns 16 per cent of Amazon despite selling billions of dollars worth of shares to fund his space company Blue Origin. Trailing behind Bezos on $93 billion is Microsoft kingpin Bill Gates who Bezos overtook as the world’s richest man in March this year. Gates’s fortune would be considerably higher had he not given away billions through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is one of the biggest transfers of wealth from an individual in history.