Can Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of $130 billion, be short in cash? This question comes after he sold Amazon stocks worth billions in less than two weeks.
However, don’t fret just yet – it is unlikely that he is leaving the multinational e-commerce company because he has been doing this in the past years. On Jan. 31, Jeff began selling his stocks, starting with 905,456 shares that were estimated to be worth $1.84 billion.
Then, just a few days later, he again let go of over 810,000 Amazon shares, which was priced at $1.65 billion, and another $579.8-million worth — and altogether, Jeff has sold more than 1.7 billion shares ($4.1 billion).
This marks the biggest sell-down in just a week, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index noted. In 2016, Jan Koum, Whatsapp founder, got rid of $4-billion worth of Facebook shares, the closest to Jeff’s number, but it took months for this to happen.
Unknowledgeable ones were baffled as to why Jeff did these things but if you observe his activities in the last few years, then you would know that this was nothing but normal.
In 2019, Jeff received around $2.8 billion after selling his Amazon stocks and he also sold 1 million shares (2017) and another million (2016) for $940 million and $756.74 million, respectively.
So what could he possibly do with such a hefty amount? The 56-year-old, who just went through a high-profile divorce from his ex-wife Mackenzie Bezos last year, previously said that he will be selling Amazon shares to fund his space exploration venture called Blue Origin, which was founded in 2000.
Of course, Jeff is taking a very familiar route that’s also traveled by a fellow tech genius, Elon Musk, who put up his space company called SpaceX. Both the businessmen aim to make traveling to space feasible and affordable.
Another reason may be a property in Los Angeles. Recent reports showed Jeff shelled out $165 million for the priciest abode in the state — but of course, this whopping amount is just a tiny portion of his net worth.
He bought the palatial property from another rich man, David Geffen. It seems that Jeff is a huge fan of sky-high priced houses – last year, he was set back by $80 million for four floors of a Manhattan’s Madison Avenue apartment.