Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to sell up to $4.75 billion worth of Amazon shares over the next year, according to official documents released on Friday.
Jeff Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in mid-2021, plans to sell up to 25 million shares through a planned trading schedule that will continue until the end of May 2026.
Based on Thursday’s closing price of $190 per share, the shares are worth about $4.75 billion. According to Amazon’s latest quarterly report, this trading plan was created in early March.
The news was shared just hours after Amazon warned that Donald Trump’s global trade policies might hurt its business. The company said its sales and profits could be lower than what Wall Street expected.
Earlier in 2024, Bezos sold more than $13.4 billion worth of Amazon shares. That same year, Amazon’s total value went over $2 trillion thanks to strong investor interest in artificial intelligence.
The world’s second-richest man has slowly stepped back from Amazon, the online store he started in 1994, and is now spending more time on his space company, Blue Origin, and the U.S. newspaper, The Washington Post.
Bezos has sold Amazon shares to help pay for his space company, Blue Origin, which he wholly owns. While the company doesn’t share its financial details, it is known to spend over $2 billion each year. Some of that money comes from government contracts, and Bezos covers the rest himself.
In recent months, Bezos has been working to improve his relationship with the U.S. president, even though he had previously called him a “threat to democracy.”
The relationship between Bezos and Trump has improved. They met several times over the past year, and Bezos even attended Trump’s second inauguration with his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez.
At the same time, Bezos has asked The Washington Post to focus more on personal freedoms and free markets. His shift towards Trump has caused many employees to leave the newspaper, and it has reportedly lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
In addition to selling large amounts of Amazon shares, Bezos has also sold smaller amounts to fund his charity work. One of the projects he supports is the Day One Fund, a non-profit organization focused on education inspired by the Montessori method, which he founded.
In March, Bezos sold about $60 million worth of shares to donate to a non-profit organization, though the name of the organization was not revealed, according to official documents.
Read also – Indonesia Extends MSME Tax Incentives Until 2025
