And just like that, Jeff Bezos is no longer the second-richest person on the planet. It was a title he held for just about two weeks. The new second-richest person on the planet is Zara founder Amancio Ortega.
The 81-year-old Spanish billionaire's net worth surged recently to $77 billion, which edges out Jeff's $76 billion net worth by $1 billion.
Amancio is not exactly a newcomer to the list of the world's richest people. He has consistently been in the top 10 for the last 20 years, and for the last 10 years he has consistently been in the top 5.
For a brief time back in October 2015, Amancio was even the #1 richest person on the planet after Zara's stock surged. Amancio was $500 million richer on paper than Bill Gates for a few days.
Amancio is extremely secretive and is rarely photographed. Throughout his entire career, he has only granted three interviews. Here, he is pictured with his daughter, Marta Ortega Perez:
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
Amancio is the son of a railroad worker. He grew up poor and stared his career off as a retail clerk at a clothing store. Today Zara is one of the largest fashion brands on the planet with a market cap of $100 billion.
Zara is technically owned by a holding company called Inditex. Ortega owns 59.3% of Inditex. He has received more than $4.5 billion worth of dividends since the company's IPO in 2001. Ortega has invested in real estate in the United States and Europe and owns a property portfolio valued at $1.4 billion. In addition, he controls a 21.6 percent stake in real estate giant Grilse.
