Amazon shares spiked in early trading Friday after the online retailer blew past quarterly earnings and revenue estimates, boosted by growth in the North American market and cloud computing segment.
Shares rose 20 percent, giving the retailer a larger market capitalization than bricks-and-mortar behemoth Wal-Mart.
The surge also generated a huge windfall for CEO Jeff Bezos, who owns 83,921,121 shares of the company. At Friday’s early prices, his fortune rose some $8.05 billion—a gain that by itself would be enough to put him in the world’s 200 richest people.