Amazon founder Jeff Bezos became the richest person in modern history today

Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and chief executive, is certainly having a happy Prime Day today.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily tracker of the world's richest people, Bezos was worth more than $150 billion this morning, which made him the richest person in modern history. 

The achievement even takes into account inflation when Microsoft founder Bill Gates was worth $100 billion in 1999. That wealth would equate to about $149 billion today.

Although Bezos has since fallen back to a measly $145 billion net worth from his peak this morning, his rank as the world's richest person has been on-and-off since July 2017. Bezos and Gates have swapped spots on lists of the world's wealthiest people depending on how well their respective companies Amazon and Microsoft perform. Read more...