Five of the best known executives in tech, Jeffrey Bezos of Amazon (AMZN), Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Alphabet (GOOGL), Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT) and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook (FB), all together have hauled in more than $11 billion in gains Friday from their stocks following astounding earnings reports. That's a big slice of the $95 billion in total market value creation minted for all investors who own these shares today.
The biggest winner is Larry Page of Alphabet, the parent company of online advertising firm Google. Shares of the company are up 7.2% Friday to $730.38 after late Thursday topping analysts forecasts for the third quarter by 2%. Adjusted profit came in at $7.35 a share, which was up 16% from the same period a year ago. That massive pop in the stock went straight to Page's pocketbook, adding $3.2 billion. But Alphabet's other top shareholder and co-founder Sergey Brin scored $3.1 billion as well.
Not far behind is Jeffrey Bezos, the visionary CEO that's morphed Amazon from an online bookseller into a global provider of cloud services and retail. Bezos hauled in $3.1 billion himself thanks to the stock's 6.6% jump to $601.40. Amazon shares are soaring after the company delivered an adjusted quarterly profit of 17 cents a share, absolutely thrilling investors who were braced for a loss of 13 cents a share
Bill Gates' Microsoft is back, too! Gates, who has been gradually selling shares over the years to fund his global philanthropic goals, still owns 223.4 million shares of Microsoft. That's enough to generate a $1.1 billion gain for Gates thanks to Microsoft's massive 10% stock gain to $52.91. Microsoft's shares jumped by a larger percentage than any of the other big tech stocks following a resoundingly strong profit report from the company. The report cheered investors since it highlighted success in the cloud not to mention enterprise services like Office 365 and momentum behind Windows 10. Microsoft reported an adjusted quarterly profit of 67 cents a share, beating expectations by 14%.
Investors are so giddy about tech - they're pouring into shares of companies that haven't even reported yet. Facebook shares are up 1.5% to $101.155 - breaking the $100 a share barrier for the first time. That's enough to add $426.3 million to Zuckerberg's wallet - even though the social networking company doesn't report profit until Nov. 4.
It's a great day to be a tech titan - but doesn't it seem like everyday is?
BIGGEST PAPER WEALTH GAINS OF TECH TITANS
Executive, Company, Stock gain Friday ($ millions)
Larry Page, Alphabet, $3,197
Sergey Brin, Alphabet, $3,124
Jeffrey Bezos, Amazon, $3,109
Bill Gates, Microsoft, $1,090
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, $426.3
