What counts as rich, and how much should it bother the rest of us? The groom at the “wedding of the year” ranks third on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a net worth of $244bn, which is about 4m times median US earnings and roughly 0.9% of US annual GDP. For comparison, John D Rockefeller’s net worth of $1.4bn on his death, in 1937, was around 3m times average individual earnings but 1.5% of US GDP.
Kim Kardashian (L) and sister Khloe take selfies on the boat heading for the venue.
Bloomberg’s top 50 are all worth more than $36bn. Normally, they’re spread from California to Monaco and Mumbai, but this weekend many are in Venice, a concentration of wealth that the French economist Thomas Piketty might see as proof of his theory that returns on capital always beat returns on work. Piketty has a point. The heirs and investors among Bezos’s guests probably understate the power of compound interest in explaining their wealth; the tech people probably overstate their genius and discount their leg up from the state. (Tim Berners-Lee invented the web, and Uncle Sam funded it.) No wonder a giant banner on Piazza San Marco demands that Bezos pay more tax. But there’s another way to see this.
Kylie Jenner was criticised for wearing a dress dangerously similar to the bride’s.
His fortune is not unmerited. He has harnessed a new technology to sell to the world, but it hasn’t been easy. If it had been, everyone would have done it. Bezos is block-booking Venice’s finest hotels because he can. And he is paying top dollar.
This is not the most extravagant of weddings – India’s billionaires specialise in those. Nor will Bezos be the first trillionaire. That is more likely to be Larry Ellison or Elon Musk. In the meantime, Bezos is throwing a party livestreamed to the world – and heartily resented for it, for no better reason than not everyone’s invited.
Bill Gates with Paula Hurd, who he has been dating since 2022.
Singer Ellie Goulding wore a gown by The Own studio.
Orlando Bloom, before the wedding on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, Italy.
Oprah Winfrey at Hotel Gritti on 26 June.
Tommy Hilfiger was among the guests.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
Leonardo Di Caprio.
A poster reading ‘No Space for Bezos’ is pasted on a wall in Venice.
Protests raged across the city, including in St Mark’s Square.
This photo released by Greenpeace shows a large banner against Amazon founder in St Mark’s Square.
Activists displayed a banner on the Rialto Bridge to protest against the wedding.
Photographs by Lauren Sanchez/Instagram, Marco Bertorello/AFP via Getty Images, Luigi Costantini/AP, Andrea Carrubba/Anadolu via Getty Images, Luigi Iorio/GC Images, Ernesto Ruscio/GC Images, Antonio Calanni/AP, Andrea Pattaro/ AFP, Greenpeace via AP, Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images
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