When Jeff Bezos set out with a straightforward plan to sell books online, few anticipated the company would grow exponentially by offering the world's consumers virtually everything they need for everyday life—and eventually make him the world's richest man. But that is exactly what could happen soon.

Bezos' 17% stake in Amazon (AMZN) - Get Report was worth about $80.3 billion when the company's shares soared passed $1,000 in earlier trading Tuesday. Shares closed up slightly at $996.70.

According to Bloomberg'sBillionaire Index, Bezos' total net worth is $85 billion, right behind Warren Buffett, whose total net worth is $88.8 billion.

In large part, the bullishness on Amazon is being fueled by its disruption of industries from bricks-and-mortar retail to cloud computing. For instance, Amazon is the leader in the public cloud business, reported Cowen & Co., which polled some 550 cloud users in March, beating out Microsoft's (MSFT) - Get Report Azure, Alphabet's (GOOGL) - Get Report Google Cloud platform, Oracle (ORCL) - Get Report Cloud, IBM (IBM) - Get Report Softlayer and other big players.

Amazon is expected to grow even more as it continues to build out cloud computing, digital assistant technology, streaming services and on-demand product delivery. Analysts had questioned whether the company's outsized spending on original content, warehouses and other items would begin to become a headwind to profits. But, Amazon has reassured Wall Street that those expenses wouldn't weigh mightily on the bottom line.

And Bezos, undoubtedly, couldn't be happier as he scales the ranks of the world's richest. All hail, King Jeff.

Jim Cramer and the AAP team hold a position in Alphabet for their Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells GOOGL? Learn more now.

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