Jeff Bezos to promote as much as $4.75bn in Amazon inventory over subsequent 12 months

Jeff Bezos is getting ready to promote as much as $4.75bn (£3.6bn) price of Amazon inventory over the following 12 months, in line with a regulatory submitting made on Friday.

The era corporate’s govt chair and previous leader govt plans to dump as much as 25m stocks via a buying and selling plan that ends on 29 May 2026.

This tranche is price about $4.75bn, in accordance with the remaining worth on Thursday. The divestment comes after Bezos offered $13.4bn of Amazon inventory closing 12 months.

Bezos is the arena’s 2d richest individual, in line with Bloomberg’s billionaire index, with an estimated general web price of $212bn. Elon Musk, the boss of Tesla, ranks first, with an estimated general web price of $332bn.

The announcement got here simply hours after Amazon reported its first quarter income for 2025. Revenue rose by means of 9% within the length to $155.7bn, and benefit got here in at $17.1bn. Nevertheless, Amazon stocks fell in after-hours buying and selling amid issues round how Donald Trump’s business price lists may just have an effect on the trade.

Andy Jassy, the manager govt of Amazon, stated it used to be “hard to tell with tariffs how they’re going to settle and when they’re going to settle” in a choice with analysts, including that there had “maybe never been a more important time” to have the broadest collection of pieces on the lowest conceivable costs.

Prices on Amazon’s on-line market have began to upward thrust since Trump introduced new price lists initially of April, in particular on Chinese imports.

Last week the White House accused Amazon of committing a “hostile and political act” after a document recommended the corporate used to be making plans to tell shoppers about how a lot Trump’s price lists would price them as they shopped.

Amazon has distanced itself from the document, announcing the theory have been thought to be by means of Amazon Haul, a cheap buying groceries hub inside of its workforce, but it surely have been rejected.

Bezos and Trump have had a blended courting. During Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign, the Amazon founder argued a few of Trump’s rhetoric broken democracy, whilst Trump stated Amazon didn’t pay sufficient tax.

Bezos seems to have warmed to the president in his 2d management, then again. He attended Trump’s inauguration previous this 12 months, along different giant tech founders, and donated $1m to his inauguration fund.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post, which is owned by means of Bezos, introduced days sooner than the latest presidential election that it would now not endorse a candidate, for the primary time in additional than 3 many years. The newspaper then overhauled its opinion segment in February to focal point its output “in support and defence of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets”, Bezos stated.

Shares in Amazon slipped just about 1% in early buying and selling on Wall Street on Friday.