How Much Does Jeff Bezos Make in a Second, in a Day, and in a Year?

While the rest of us were busy devising creative ways of stretching our paychecks amidst the covid-19 pandemic, prominent personalities in the tech industry were smiling to the bank. The shutdown necessitated by the pandemic meant that several aspects of human life had to migrate online and this led to a boom for the techpreneurs. One of the biggest beneficiaries in this regard was none other than Jeff Bezos who grew his net worth by tens of billions of dollars.

In fact, in July 2020, the Amazon supremo added a whopping $13 billion to his net worth in just one day thanks to an 8% spike in his company’s shares. Such a feat, which is a world record, left many people stunned but it must be emphasized that this is not what a regular payday looks like for Bezos. Even though he makes so much money, the vast majority of his wealth depends on the stock market which is notorious for swinging forward and backward. So, what actually does Jeff Bezos make in a day, a year, or even per second? Well, we have crunched the numbers for you below.

How Much Does Jeff Bezos Make in a Year?

The bulk of money that Jeff Bezos makes each year comes from his Amazon stocks (which is around 57 million units) but even without that, his salary as Amazon CEO is not shabby at all. The man typically collects $81,840 as his base pay while another $1.6 million is for other types of compensation, most ostensibly security costs. It means that Bezos makes about $1.68 million each year as his annual salary from Amazon. This is a far cry from the average yearly income in the United States which is put at $48,672 for 2020. It, therefore, means that Bezos’ annual salary is a whopping 33 times more than what many ordinary Americans take home each year.

Blown away by this fact? Then, let us shock you some more. As earlier stated, the bulk of Jeff Bezos’ yearly earnings do not come from his salaries but rather his shares in his company. At last count, he owns about 57 million shares in Amazon and the prices of these shares go as high as $3,000 per share. This leads to variations in earnings. However, if we go by Forbes estimate that shows that Bezos was worth $113 billion in April 2020 and $177 billion in April 2021, it means that his stock earned him $64 billion in just one year.

We can therefore safely conclude that the Amazon CEO earns a total of $65.6 billion each year. This makes his annual earnings 1.3 million times higher than what the average U.S. worker earns in a year. It also means that he makes more in a year than the budget of several developing countries.

Jeff Bezos
Bezos with former U.S. President, Donald Trump Image Source

How Much Does The Amazon CEO Make in a Day?

Going by figures that we have already set out above, Jeff Bezos’ annual pay package of $1.68 million translates into daily wages of $4,607 at Amazon. If you factor in his stock earnings as well, it means that he possibly makes as much as $180 million in one single day. To better appreciate just how awesome this figure is, U.S. government estimates show that a college-educated man who embarks on a 40-year career will make about $2.2 million in his lifetime while a college-educated woman with a similar trajectory will make about $1.3 million in her lifetime. It, therefore, means that most Americans require 81 lifetimes of 40-year careers to be able to make what Mr. Bezos makes in a day presently.

Of course, such a glaring disparity has not gone unnoticed and Bezos and his fellow billionaires have faced criticism from the public who believe that they should pay more in taxes. There have also been controversies over the treatment that they mete out to those who work for them. Several Amazon workers complained of tough and grueling working conditions during the pandemic. They also raised health and safety concerns and this didn’t look too good for Bezos as it seemed that he was adding billions to his net worth at the expense of the wellbeing of his workers.

Perhaps, to mitigate such an image, the man has become more active in philanthropic issues and donated $100 million to Feed America (a non-profit that operates food banks and pantries across America) in 2020.

Jeff Bezos
Bezos discussing with former Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter Image Source

How Much Does Jeff Bezos Make in One Second?

Working with total yearly earnings of $65.6 billion, Jeff Bezos makes about $2,080 every passing second. This is 286 times more than most American workers make in one hour given that the federally-mandated minimum wage is put at $7.25. It also means that the Amazon CEO earns in 23 seconds, what most Americans will make in a year. The numbers are truly mind-numbing and it is such figures that saw Bezos become the very first individual to hit the $200 billion mark in August 2020. His net worth has since come down to $186 billion but projections have it that he could be the first human being to become a trillionaire. This feat is not expected to take donkey years to achieve as it is believed that Bezos could hit that mark as soon as 2026.

According to a study made by Comparisun.com (a content platform that serves small and medium-sized businesses) in 2020, Bezos’s wealth has grown by 34% over the past five years. Should that growth trajectory continue, then the Amazon founder is set to become a trillionaire by 2026 at which point he will be 62 years old. As you may expect, such predictions have triggered an avalanche of reactions. First were the economics and finance experts who pointed out that it was unrealistic to expect that Amazon would continue to record the same strong growth that it is currently enjoying. They also pointed out that the American economy can always run into a downturn which would inevitably affect Amazon and consequently, Bezos.

Jeff Bezos
Bezos with some Hollywood stars at the Golden Globes ceremony Image Source

These clarifications by the experts put things in perspective but they did nothing to mollify the American populace and liberal-minded politicians. Many of them cried blue murder over the fact that one individual could get so wealthy while the rest, including his employees, were struggling to stay afloat. They renewed their call for more taxes for the extremely wealthy. Such a call continues to resonate till this day but only time will tell if the Joe Biden Administration will harken to it.

Recap of the Breakdown of Jeff Bezos Earnings
  • Per Year – Salary of $1.68 million + Amazon Stock of $64 billion = $65.6 billion each year.
  • Per Day – $180 million in one single day
  • Per Second – $2,080 every passing second

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