I’m sure everyone would love a million dollars. That amount of money is life changing for almost anyone. In fact, if that money isn’t life changing then you’re doing pretty well.
That’s why in this article we’re going to cover what would happen if Jeff Bezos gave everyone a million dollars and if that’s even possible.
But first let’s cover some important points about how much money Jeff Bezos has, how many are alive today, and the effects of giving away all of his money.
How rich is Jeff Bezos?
Most of Jeff’s net worth is in Amazon stock and not like the cash you can pull out of an ATM with a debit card and a pin. Because his net worth is in stock there is less liquidity.
And while $132 billion is certainly a lot of money, he can’t use all of it because the more he uses, the more value it loses, ultimately costing more money. It’s kind of a catch 22.
In fact, that $132 billion may not be enough to give everyone in the world $100, but we’ll get to that math later on this article. However, before we can get there, we need to know how many people there are in the world today.
Once we know that, we can use Jeff Bezos’ net worth and the number of people to know how much each person will receive.
How many people are there in the world?
Know, you might be thinking that $132.8 billion is much more than 7.75 billion and you’re right. And since the amount of money is more than the amount of people, we know that Jeff Bezos can give every person on Earth at least $1. But can he can give each person $1 million?
Let’s find it.
How much money can Jeff Bezos give each person in the world?
To find out how much money Jeff Bezos can give each person in the world, you just need to divide his net worth ($132 billion) by the number of people in the world (7.75 billion).
$132,000,000,000 / 7,750,000,000 = $17.03
That’s far off from $1 million per person, but it’s still impressive at all that he can give everyone in the world almost $20.
But let’s find out how much Jeff Bezos would have to be worth to give every person in the world $1 million. After all, that’s what we’re interested in here.
How Much Money To Give Every Person in the World $1 Million?
To give every person in the world $1 million, you need to multiply $1 million by the world’s population, which we know if 7.75 billion.
7,750,000,000 * $1,000,000 = $7,750 trillion
To give every person in the world $1 million, you would need to have over $7 thousand trillion. That is an enormous amount of money and far more than even exists in the world today. According to Global Banking, there is only $40 trillion worth of physical money available today.
If you include cryptocurrencies and investments, which would apply here since most of Jeff Bezos’ money is in Amazon stock, you would reach 1 quadrillion or 1 thousand trillion. Still way off of the $7 thousand trillion you would need to give everyone $1 million.
As a result, to give everyone in the world $1 million, you would need approximately 7x the total amount of money and investment value available in the world today.
What would happen if Jeff Bezos gave everyone a million dollars?
The fantasy scenario of everyone receiving $1 million from Jeff Bezos wouldn’t last long as the value of that money would quickly fall. Let’s explain that further.
Most of Jeff Bezos’ net worth is through Amazon stock. That stock’s worth is partly because Jeff owns it and with enough ownership, the stock is considered stable and valuable. However, when that stock is distributed, especially to people who will likely sell it ASAP, it becomes a race to sell. And when everyone wants to sell, few people want to buy, so the value of what you’re trying to sell plummets.
The value of stock is largely in part due to supply and demand.
You can read more about how stock prices will fluctuate based on supply and demand in this article from GoBankingRates.
When you received the $1 million in stock, it might have been worth $1 million, but as soon as the massive sell off occurs, it will probably be worth pennies on the dollar, at least in the short term.
You may eventually see the value of the stock increase back up to its original value, but that’s a gamble.
Conclusion
What would happen if Jeff Bezos gave everyone a million dollars? That’s where we started.
It’s a fantasy scenario for Jeff Bezos to give away all of his money to everyone in the world. And even if he wanted to or could do that, from a purely mathematical standpoint, everyone would receive $17. However, most of what he would give away is Amazon stock. And because the value of that stock is based partly on supply and demand, you would likely have even less than $17.
None of this will happen and it’s fun to speculate, but it’s important to know how net worth is calculated. It’s not like the money in your checking account. You can’t pay rent with it, unless you sell it and that affects the value of what you possess.
It’s largely complicated and convoluted, but just know that Jeff Bezos can never and likely will never give all of his money away at once. He can give some of it away over time in small chunks, but that’s not a fun scenario to imagine.
