San Francisco, Oct 26 (IANS): Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, after briefly losing the top spot as the world's richest man to Bill Gates, regained the position.

Bezos lost to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates after Amazon's lacklustre Q3 results resulted in him losing nearly $7 billion in stock value. Amazon shares fell 7 per cent in after-hours trading on Thursday, leaving Bezos down to $103.9 billion.

Though shares of Amazon fell on Friday compared to Thursday's market close, the drop wasn't as steep as in after-hours trading.

Amazon shares fell 1 per cent to $1,760.78 on Friday, putting Bezos' net worth at $109.9 billion, and back at number one, according to Forbes.

Gates is just $4.1 billion behind Bezos at number two richest, worth $105.8 billion.

Bezos ended Gates' 24-year run as the richest man in 2018 and became the first man on earth with a net worth of $160 billion.

Amazon reported a 26 per cent drop in net income in its third quarter, its first profit decline since 2017, reports Forbes.

In after-hours trading, Amazon dropped nearly 9 per cent to $1,624 per share.

Gates debuted on Forbes' first ever billionaire list in 1987 with a net worth of $1.25 billion.

Bezos first joined The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans in 1998, one year after Amazon went public, with a net worth of $1.6 billion, the report added.