Amazon Founder to Sell $6.6 Billion in Shares... Reason Remains "Silent"

Stock Sale Plan Announced Just One Day After Earnings Release
Are Political and Regulatory Risks Also a Factor?

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to sell approximately $4.75 billion (about 6.6 trillion won) worth of Amazon shares over the next year.

On May 2 (local time), Bloomberg reported that Amazon had submitted documents containing this information to U.S. regulatory authorities. The amount was calculated based on Amazon's closing share price of $189.98 that day.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce company. Photo by AP Yonhap News

This sale comes one year after Bezos disposed of Amazon shares worth $13.4 billion (17.8 trillion won) last year. Amazon explained that this sale is in accordance with a pre-arranged trading plan reported to U.S. authorities in March. However, the company did not disclose the specific reason for the sale.

Bezos stepped down from day-to-day management in 2021, handing over the CEO position to Andy Jassy, but he remains Amazon's largest shareholder. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as of April 3, Bezos directly holds more than 904 million Amazon shares.

He is the world's second-richest person after Tesla CEO Elon Musk, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His estimated net worth is about $212 billion (approximately 297 trillion won). The announcement of this stock sale plan came immediately after Amazon released its earnings for the first quarter (January to March).

Meanwhile, Amazon recently considered a policy to separately display additional amounts added as tariffs on some products, but quickly withdrew the policy after strong opposition from the White House. During this process, there were reports that former President Donald Trump personally called Bezos to protest.

Earlier this year, Amazon donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration committee, and Bezos attended the inauguration ceremony in January, appearing to grow closer to Trump. However, the high-tariff policy toward China that former President Trump is promoting is expected to deal a significant blow to Amazon's e-commerce business, which has a high proportion of Chinese products.