Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to sell up to $4.75 billion worth of shares in the ecommerce company over the next 12 months, regulatory filings revealed on Friday.
Mr Bezos, who stepped down as Seattle-based tech group’s chief executive in mid-2021, will sell up to 25 million shares via an orderly trading plan running through to the end of May 2026. At Thursday’s closing price of $190, the stake is worth about $4.75 billion.
The trading plan was set up in early March, according to Amazon’s latest quarterly filing.
The disclosure came hours after Amazon warned on Thursday evening of the impact of Donald Trump‘s global trade war, forecasting that net sales and operating income could come in below Wall Street‘s forecasts.
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Mr Bezos previously offloaded more than $13.4 billion of Amazon stock over the course of 2024, a year in which the company’s market cap rose beyond $2 trillion, fuelled by investor excitement over artificial intelligence.
The world’s second-richest man has gradually shifted his attention away from the ecommerce company he founded in 1994, paying renewed focus on his space venture Blue Origin and US newspaper The Washington Post.
Mr Bezos has used Amazon share sales to help finance Blue Origin and is the group’s sole shareholder. The company does not disclose financial information but its costs run in excess of $2 billion a year, according to a person familiar with the matter. Revenue from federal contracts fulfil a portion of its costs, with the Amazon founder making up any shortfall.
In recent months Mr Bezos has also engaged in a concerted effort to mend his relationship with a US president he once criticised as a “threat to democracy”.
The relationship has since warmed, with Mr Bezos meeting Mr Trump multiple times in the past year and attending his second inauguration alongside his fiancee Lauren Sánchez.
Meanwhile, the Amazon founder has instructed The Washington Post to focus more narrowly on personal liberties and free markets. His turn towards Mr Trump has triggered an exodus of talent from the newspaper, which has reportedly lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
As well as offloading huge chunks of Amazon shares, Mr Bezos has sold smaller amounts to finance charitable ventures including the Day One Fund, an educational Montessori-inspired non-profit organisation that he founded.
In March, Mr Bezos offloaded roughly $60 million worth of shares to donate to an unnamed non-profit organisation, according to regulatory filings. Mr Bezos did not immediately respond to a request for comment. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited
