Amazon Becomes First Ever Company To Lose $1,000,000,000,000

The Amazon Market Value suffered a massive hit recently after it went down to a sum of $879 billion from its earlier market value of $1.88 trillion in July 2021. As reported by Bloomberg, this is the first publicly-listed company that has lost over $1 trillion in its market value. Needless to say, this company isn’t the only one in the market that has been dealing with a shaky economy’s impact. Furthermore, an absence of online shopping following the release of COVID-19 limitations has been an effect as well.

Microsoft’s market value- which peaked at around $2.5 trillion has also suffered a hit- with the current value around $1.78 trillion. Meta- which was previously known as Facebook- also suffered a hit from its earlier value of $1 trillion. It sits at $285 billion currently. It must also be mentioned that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been down by more than 8% ever since 2022 began. [1]

The Amazon market value loss led to the company’s CEO, Andy Jassy, introducing a cost-cutting review of the company. A Wall Street Journal reports on this wherein they spoke of other sectors that took a hit as well. Jassy’s cost-cutting review would be focusing on suspending or eliminating projects which are unprofitable and also reassigning employees. The company has also started paying close attention to its tech and gadget business, which includes Alexa.

The company’s CFO, Brian Olsavsky, went on to claim, “We are seeing signs all around that, again, people’s budgets are tight, inflation is still high, energy costs are an additional layer on top of that caused by other issues. We are preparing for what could be a slower growth period, like most companies.” 

The Amazon Market Value And The Market Values Of Several Companies Took A Massive Hit Recently

The Amazon market value dip also implies that Jeff Bezos is no longer the second-richest individual on Earth. According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Bezos stands as the fourth richest currently. He comfortably overtook Bill Gates as the richest man on the planet on October 27th, 2017. However, there are a couple of individuals before him currently- with Elon Musk leading from the front.

And yet, Bezos still had a net worth of $109 billion as of November 10th – which for the average public is unimaginable. Putting it in perspective- Bezos could easily purchase around 63.8 million troy ounces of gold and around 1.18 billion barrels of crude oil. This is also the equivalent of 0.474% of the total GDP of the country.

According to recent media reports, the unthinkable wealth of the founder of Amazon doesn’t really enforce sanitary conditions in his family. His former housekeeper has filed a lawsuit to this effect. Mercedes Wedaa, the housekeeper Bezos had hired in 2019 to work around the house unseen, recently alleged that she had been constantly contracting UTI due to the unsanitary conditions in his household.

According to Wedaa’s attorney- Patrick McGuigan, “Employers discriminated against Plaintiff because of her race, forced Plaintiff to work long hours without rest or meal breaks, exposed Plaintiff to unsafe and unsanitary work conditions, retaliated against and wrongfully terminated Plaintiff’s employment.”[2]

As it turns out, the dip in the Amazon market value didn’t stop Ms. Wedaa from securing a six-figure salary. According to Bezos’s lawyer, Harry Korrell, “Ms. Wedaa made over six figures annually and was the lead housekeeper. She was responsible for her own break and meal times, and there were several bathrooms and breakrooms available to her and other staff. The evidence will show that Ms. Wedaa was terminated for performance reasons. Given their backgrounds, the suggestion that Bezos, Sanchez, or Northwestern LLC discriminated against Ms. Wedaa based on her race or national origin is absurd.”

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Sources

1. “Amazon Loses $1 Trillion in Market Value, a Historic First.” CNET. Andrew Blok. November 10, 2022.
2. “Amazon becomes first ever company to lose $1,000,000,000,000.” Unilad. Anish Vij. November 10, 2022.