Jeff Bezos bags $8.5B after selling 50 million Amazon shares over 2 weeks
Jeff Bezos has sold a total of 50 million Amazon shares during the past two weeks, bagging roughly $8.5 billion in cash, according to securities filings.
The 60-year-old e-tailing tycoon unloaded more than 14 million shares on Tuesday for about $2.37 billion — after selling 36 million Amazon shares in three transactions last week, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing earlier reported on by CNBC.
The four sales were executed under a prearranged trading plan that Bezos disclosed earlier this month, which said that he could sell up to 50 million Amazon shares before Jan. 31, 2025.
The selling spree marks the first time that Bezos has sold his stock in the e-commerce behemoth since May 2021, the year he stepped down as Amazon’s CEO and assumed the sole role of executive chairman.
It’s unclear what Bezos plans to do with his handsome windfall, which he will get a tax break on thanks to his recent Seattle-to-Miami move.
Bezos — also the founder of space company Blue Origin and the owner of The Washington Post — announced that he was leaving his longtime Seattle home in November, triggering a flurry of questions about whether the world’s second-richest person was looking to skirt higher tariffs.
Washington state imposed a 7% levy on capital gains on stocks or bonds upwards of $250,000 in 2022. Florida, however, has no such tax.
Had Bezos stayed in Emerald City — where he built a multimillion-dollar compound less than 10 miles from Amazon’s Seattle headquarters — he would’ve had to cough up $595 million to satisfy that capital gains tax.
The figure surpasses the $500 million Bezos doled out to purchase his superyacht, named Koru, which features a helicopter landing pad, swimming pool and a mermaid resembling his fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, adorning the prow.
Aside from the capital gains tax breaks he’ll get, Bezos is also poised to save on property taxes now that he call’s Miami’s exclusive Indian Creek island, also known as “Billionaire Bunker,” home.
Property taxes are 0.89% in the Sunshine State — less than Washington’s real estate tax rate of 0.98%, according to Rocket Mortgage.
Bezos bought a a $79 million, seven-bedroom, 14-bathroom abode in Miami in October — two months after buying the three-bedroom, three-bathroom home next door for $68 million.
After scooping up two of only 40 reported waterfront properties on the ultra-exclusive island, Bezos reportedly has plans to bulldoze the $68 million pad and build a single megamansion with its neighboring eight-figure enclave.
It wasn’t immediately clear if he also has plans to tear down the $79 million, 19,064-square-foot home, though he’ll certainly be paying less property taxes than he did on his former primary residence in Seattle, where he executed a similar teardown project after accumulating a 5.3-acre property in the affluent Medina, Wash., neighborhood.
Also in Washington, deep-pocketed residents with assets valued at $2.193 million or more are also obligated to pay an estate tax ranging from 10% to 20% upon their death.
If Bezos were to keep Seattle as his primary residence and maintain his current net worth, it would mean he’d have to give up as much as $38.8 billion in estate taxes upon his death.
Florida, meanwhile, does not charge residents estate tax, regardless of asset size.
Representatives for Bezos did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
