According to filings, Jeff Bezos will make more than $8 billion from the sale of a large stake in Amazon.
The third richest man in the world, with a net worth of $185 billion (£146billion), is looking to sell up to 50 millions shares in his retail giant founded in 1994. The sale of shares worth $172 each could bring in $8.6 billion. Bezos plans to gradually sell his stake up until January 2025.
The announcement came shortly after the retailer announced annual results that exceeded expectations. Amazon generated $170 billion of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2023, while Wall Street analysts expected $166 billion. Shares of Amazon rose by nearly 8 percent on Friday. This jump comes after a rally of Amazon’s shares over the past year.
Bezos is estimated to own 9.56 percent of Amazon according to data provider FactSet. He sold his last Amazon shares worth around $2 billion in 2021. That was the year Andy Jassy succeeded him as CEO.
The bounty could help fund other parts Bezos’s empire. Bezos Expeditions was founded in 2005 by Bezos. It has stakes Airbnb, Uber and Business Insider/X.
In 2000, he founded the aerospace company Blue Origin to increase the accessibility of space tourism. Bezos himself went to space in 2021 as part of a Blue Origin Mission.
He co-founded Altos Labs a biotechnology company that develops therapies to stop the ageing process. It was able to attract Hal Barron as a top scientist from the GSK drugs giant.
Bezos has made a limited amount of charitable donations compared to Bill Gates. He overtook him as the richest man in the world last year. Since stepping down from his position as Amazon’s chief executive, Bezos has been pouring funds into the Bezos Earth Fund – a sustainability charity he founded in the previous year. Bezos owns The Washington Post and has made donations to politicians of both major political parties in the US.