- This week, Jeff Bezos sold 12 million Amazon shares for a profit of about $2 billion.
- This is Bezos' first major sale of company stock since 2021.
- The move moves Bezos closer to overtaking Elon Musk as the world's richest person.
jeff bezos He sold 12 million Amazon shares this week, netting about $2 billion in a strategic move to reassert his title as the “world's richest man.”
The sale was in line with Bezos' plan announced by the company in early February to sell 50 million shares worth about $8.5 billion by the end of the year.
According to the company's 2023 proxy statement, Mr. Bezos owned 988 million Amazon shares at the end of December, just shy of 10%, and his total holdings were worth about $168 billion. do.
The surge in Amazon's stock this year has increased the company's founder and chairman's estimated wealth by $22.6 billion, according to . Bloomberg Billionaires Index. This rapid increase has propelled Bezos to second place on the list of the world's richest people, with a net worth of $200 billion at the time of publication.
Although the exact motivations behind Bezos' decision to sell his shares are unclear, the large-scale sale certainly narrows the gap between his and Elon Musk's net worths and puts Bezos ahead of Tesla's CEO in the world's richest list. We are in a position to overtake them.
Before this week's Amazon stock sale, Bezos' net worth was just $5 billion behind Musk's $200 billion fortune, and the title of No. 1 billionaire was well within reach. Mr. Musk's net worth rose to $209 billion in the following days, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, but Mr. Bezos' race to catch up with Mr. Musk continues.
Bezos became the world's richest person for the first time in 2017, overtaking Bill Gates.The two exchanged titles until the end of the year, but Bezos held the title of world's richest man from 2018. Until 2021, when Mr. Musk overtook him, according to Forbes' list of world billionaires.
While Bezos' wealth has soared this year, Musk's has fallen by $29 billion, due in part to a 27% drop in Tesla's stock price. The electric car company's weaker-than-expected growth and a Delaware judge's Jan. 30 ruling invalidating Musk's $55 billion pay package at Tesla sparked the stock rally.
According to Forbes magazine's list of billionaires as of February 1, Musk is the second-highest billionaire after Bernard Arnault, CEO and chairman of luxury goods group LVMH. Mr. Bezos holds the title of third place. But Bloomberg's list, updated at the end of each business day in New York, shows Musk taking the top spot with a fortune of $209 billion, Bezos by about $9 billion and Arnault in third place. It becomes.
Musk owns 411 million Tesla shares, or about 13%, worth about $73 billion.his investment Profits from his other companies, including SpaceX, The Boring Company, and X, make up the remainder of his wealth.
Bezos and Amazon representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
This week's stock sale is not the first time Bezos has sold a large portion of his Amazon holdings, but it is the only major sale he has made since 2021. That year, Bezos sold $2.5 billion worth of stock in preparation for stepping down as CEO.
Amazon released $1.8 billion in 2020 as its stock soared following the company's 2019 full-year earnings release. In 2019, Bezos sold about $2.8 billion worth of company stock.
