Here's Why Jeff Bezos Probably Won't Become A Trillionaire

As the late Senator Everett Dirksen observed, "a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." The senator died in 1969, according to the U.S. Senate's website, so a billion meant a lot more than maybe it does more than 50 years later. According to Forbes, the U.S. boasts 614 billionaire citizens as of March 18, 2020. Throw in non-citizen residents, the number goes up to 623. And per capita? The champ is Wyoming, with six billionaires of its very own within a total population of 579,000. Wyoming, "The Equality State," does not boast among its wealthy elite Jeff Bezos, of Amazon fame, with a net worth, as reported by Vox, of around $144 billion.

Numbers are numbers, and gossip is gossip. In one of those "if it didn't happen, it should have" stories, related by the Financial Times, F. Scott Fitzgerald supposedly said, "The rich are different from you and me," and Ernest Hemingway supposedly replied, "Yes, they have more money." Odds are, Jeff Bezos has more money than anybody else on the block. Pick a block. Any block.

The question arises, however: Just how much money will he have in the future? Will he continue to amass dollar after dollar? Will he eventually become a trillionaire? (Remember: "Pretty soon you're talking real money.") Apparently a couple of number-crunchers came up with a formula that suggests he will indeed break into the ranks of truly unimaginable, never-before-seen wealth. Comparisun discusses the growth rate of Bezos's wealth — for one thing, the stock of Amazon, of which he owns 11 percent, has increased 25 percent this year — and so suggests that he'll crack the trillion mark sometime in 2026.

Not so fast, argue other analysts. The methodology used for that prediction flies in the face of the old maxim: past performance doesn't guarantee future performance. No question but Amazon and other corporate giants have benefitted from a boom American economy the last few years; despite setbacks as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Bezos has still made money. Odds are, he'll continue to make money. But a lot could happen between now and 2026. Though it's pretty certain that no matter what, Jeff Bezos will be just fine.