Bezos Sells Amazon Stock for First Time This Year, Cashes Out $350 Million

U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN-US) hit a record high in its stock price on Monday (the 3rd), while its founder Jeff Bezos sold nearly $350 million worth of Amazon shares—his first sale of Amazon stock this year.

According to Bloomberg's report on Thursday, the transaction was disclosed in Form 4 filing documents released after U.S. markets closed on Wednesday. The billionaire had indicated in another filing two days earlier that he plans to sell up to 15 million Amazon shares, worth over $4 billion; this sale constitutes only a small fraction of that plan.

Amazon's stock has surged 18% this year, increasing Bezos's wealth by $38.7 billion to $292 billion. After Amazon reported strong revenue performance from its cloud computing business last week, it became the fifth company globally to surpass a $3 trillion market capitalization.

Even after this stock sale, Bezos remains the largest shareholder of Amazon by a wide margin, holding an 8.16% stake.

Bezos has accelerated the sale of Amazon shares in recent years. Since 2020, he has sold more than $38 billion worth of shares. In contrast, from Amazon's initial public offering (IPO) in 1997 until before 2020, he sold less than $10 billion in cumulative stock.