Bill Gates regains title as world’s richest person 8 hours after losing it

Bill Gates has regained his title as the "world's richest person" after losing it to Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos lost his “world’s richest person” title after eight hours, as weak earnings pushed the company stocks lower on Thursday.

The e-commerce giant said its net income declined to $197 million in the second quarter, from $857 million the same period last year, marking a massive 77 percent decline.

Revenue rose 25 percent to $38 billion from $30.4 billion, but that was not enough for Bezos to retain his title.

Amazon stock price plunged 3.2 percent to as low as $1,020 per share in after-hours trading, after they closed the day at $1,046 a share.

Bezos, who owns 17 percent of Amazon stocks, saw his net worth falling to $88.7 billion, according to Forbes’ World’s Billionaires Real Time Ranking.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates regained his title of “world’s richest person” with $89.8 billion of net worth, the ranking showed.

Amazon is still the world’s fourth biggest firm by market capitalisation behind Microsoft, while Facebook is closing on the e-commerce giant.

Facebook may surpass Amazon in market value if the latter’s shares continue to decline on Friday due to weak earnings, according to analysts.