Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos unloaded another 12 million shares of the company, putting the total tally of shares unloaded by him to $6 billion. In the latest round of stock dump, Jeff Bezos unloaded Amazon shares worth $2 billion ( ₹16,604 crore).
Jeff Bezos sold the latest tranche on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to a filing. The sales are part of an already disclosed plan to dispose of as many as 50 million shares of the company he founded.
In total, he’s now sold about 36 million shares. Bezos hasn’t explained why he’s selling, but the timing of when he instituted the trading plan may provide a clue. He announced on Nov. 2 he was moving to Miami from the Seattle region and adopted a so-called 10(b)5-1 plan on November 8.
The move to Florida has now likely saved Bezos about $430 million in taxes, reported Bloomberg. Washington state recently implemented a 7% levy on capital gains, while Florida has no such tax.
Notably, this is the biggest and only stake sale done by Jeff Bezos since 2021, when he decided to step down from his position of Amazon CEO. He also decided to donate around $240 million worth Amazon shares last year.
This comes just as Amazon stock price has seen a massive surge over the past year, seeing a jump of 73 percent since 2023, as big tech companies continue to struggle through receccion and job cuts.
Bezos said in November that was he moving to Florida, which doesn’t tax capital gains, from Seattle to be closer to his parents and the Cape Canaveral operations of his space-exploration company Blue Origin.
Till now, the Amazon founder has not yet revealed the full plan behind the stock dump. Amazon stock jumped more than 13 percent the next day on the New York Stock Exchange.
The tech behemoth achieved a sales turnover of $170 billion and a net profit of $10.6 billion, driven by faster deliveries and a particularly successful holiday season.
Earlier this week, Amazon got dethroned as the fourth most valued company by Nvidia, that saw a major spike in share price and market cap.
(With inputs from Bloomberg)
