File picture of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who is once again the world’s richest man
| Photo Credit: AP

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took back his spot as the world’s richest man on Monday, dethroning Elon Musk on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Mr. Bezos’ net worth stands at $200 billion, according to the tracker, surpassing the Tesla chief’s $198 billion.

Mr. Musk, who also heads X (formerly Twitter) and SpaceX, has seen his riches fall by more than $30 billion as Tesla’s share price has dropped 25% in recent months.

Adding to Mr. Musk’s woes, a court in January approved the annulment of his enormous Tesla compensation agreement, worth $55.8 billion and originally struck in 2018.

Amazon’s rising stock

Mr. Bezos, who no longer runs Amazon, has meanwhile benefited from the e-commerce giant’s rising stock price.

Even after recently selling off $8.5 billion in stocks he remains the company’s largest shareholder.

The French CEO of the luxury group LVMH, Bernard Arnault, remains in third place in the rankings of the world’s richest people, worth $197 billion.

Indian-American billionaire Vinod Khosla took a dig at Elon Musk’s decision to sue OpenAI, calling it “a case of sour grapes”. Mr Khosla, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, suggested the Tesla billionaire did not get into the AI game early enough. Notably, Elon Musk was OpenAI’s largest donor when it was still a non-profit while Mr Khosla was the first venture capitalist to invest in OpenAI’s ChatGPT when the company switched from a non-profit to a private firm in 2019. 

In a tweet, he wrote, ”With @elonmusk feels like a bit of sour grapes in suing @OpenAI for not getting in early enough, not staying committed, and now a rival effort. Like they say if you can’t innovate, litigate and that’s what we have here. Elon of old would be building with us to hit the same goal.”

See the post here:

With @elonmusk , feels like a bit of sour grapes in suing @OpenAI , not getting in early enough, not staying committed and now a rival effort. Like they say if you can’t innovate, litigate and that’s what we have here. Elon of old would would be building with us to hit the same…

— Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) March 2, 2024

Mr Musk replied: ”Vinod doesn’t know what he is talking about here.”

Vinod doesn’t know what he is talking about here

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2024

When many pointed out that Musk was one of the earliest investors in OpenAI, Mr Khosla clarified saying, ”Supply chain error on wording. @elonmusk got in early and bailed early when it seemed the going got tough and keeping the mission required real scale money to be able to have any benefit to society.”

Recently, Elon Musk sued OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman, among others, accusing them of breaching contractual agreements made when he helped found the ChatGPT-maker in 2015. He alleged that they violated the artificial intelligence startup’s founding mission by putting profit ahead of benefiting humanity. 

The Microsoft-backed company’s focus on seeking profits breaks that agreement, lawyers for Elon Musk said in the lawsuit.

Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but stepped down from the company’s board in 2018. ChatGPT, the chatbot from OpenAI, became the fastest-growing software application in the world within six months of its launch in November 2022. It also sparked the launch of rival chatbots from Microsoft, Alphabet, and a bevy of startups that tapped the hype to secure billions in funding.