According to a financial filing, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has unloaded some 3.3 million shares of his company. This sale is valued at around $736.7 million.
Why It Matters
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021 but is still the company’s chairman, is the third richest person in the world, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
He has previously said he would sell around $1 billion in Amazon stock each year to fund Blue Origin, his space exploration company, which he used to send female celebrities into space in April.
What To Know
The sale comes as part of a March trading plan, which will see Bezos sell up to 25 million shares of the company by May 29, 2026. In February 2024, he also followed a plan to sell up to 50 million shares of Amazon stock through the end of January 2025.
After the sale, Bezos, who founded Amazon in 1994, will own around 905 million Amazon shares, according to Reuters.
Amazon is currently trading at $219.70 a share.
The sale comes after the billionaire married Lauren Sanchez-Bezos in Venice in June. The wedding was attended by a number of celebrity guests, but also drew protests from those concerned about over-tourism and the influence of billionaires.
What People Are Saying
Stephen Ciccone, an associate Professor of Finance at the University of New Hampshire, told Newsweek: “In my opinion, the sales will have no meaningful impact on Amazon and do not suggest any negative signal about the company. Jeff Bezos is simply selling the shares as part of a prearranged plan and using the proceeds to fund his other businesses. This is not uncommon for people in his position.
“For example, Bill Gates owned almost 50 percent of Microsoft after its IPO, but over the years, he gradually reduced that percentage to about 1 percent today. Over that time, Microsoft has, of course, been a very high-performing stock, and a 50 percent stake would be worth over $1.5 trillion today.
“Bezos still holds about 900 million shares of Amazon, or almost 9 percent of the company. Although a lot of money, the $737 million sale is fairly trivial to him given his total wealth.”
What Happens Next
The sale of the shares will continue until May 2026.
Amazon is also facing a nationwide boycott starting in July, organized by The People’s Union USA. Whether this is extensive enough to affect Amazon’s share price remains to be seen.
Read the full article here
