AmazonFounder and CEO Bezos sold another $1.7 billion worth of shares in the company this week, plus nearly $5 billion in two sales last week, which has cashed out about $6.7 billion this month.
Mr. Bezos sold 521936 shares under a pre-arranged trading plan, according to documents received by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (SEC). This brings the total number of shares he sold in three tranches to 2 million in May. In a filing last week, Mr. Bezos said he plans to sell up to 2 million shares this time.
After the sale, Bezos still owns about 10% of Amazon, his biggest source of wealth. Bezos has a net worth of $188 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
In the 15 years after Amazon went public in 1997, Bezos sold 1/5 of his stake for about $2 billion. Amazon's share price has risen so fast in recent years that it can now sell relatively few shares to cash out as much money. Last year, he sold more than $10 billion worth of Amazon stock.
Bezos said in 2017 that he would sell $1 billion worth of Amazon stock every year to fund Blue Origin (Blue Origin), a space exploration company he founded. It is not clear whether Bezos cashed out this week to fund Blue Origin. He also pledged $10 billion to the Bezos Earth Fund to help deal with the effects of climate change.
In addition, Bezos is building one of the world's largest yachts and has been investing crazily in real estate. The biggest blow to his wealth came when he divorced his ex-wife Mackenzie Scott (MacKenzie Scott) and gave him a 4 per cent stake in Amazon.