Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, made his first stock purchase in the company in 21 years. He also gave 69,290 shares, valued at $8 million, to a charitable organization.
The third-richest person in the world, Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon, did something odd two weeks ago, and since then, everyone from social media users to financial analysts has been asking why.
Jeff Bezos just made his first Amazon stock purchase in 21 years (since 2002), and he also gave 69,290 shares, valued at approximately $8 million, to a charitable organization.
Recent regulatory filings revealed the gifting and single share purchase. This is surprising not just because he only purchased one share, but also since the 59-year-old founder of Amazon is more well-known for his selling skills. Since 2002, he has sold almost $30 billion worth of Amazon shares to pay for his many endeavors, including the rocket business Blue Origin and his $500 million superyacht Koru.
The majority of Jeff Bezos’ $147 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, comes from his 10% ownership of Amazon, which he has held since the company’s 1997 initial public offering (IPO). Bezos has not received any further stock as compensation since the IPO.
As Amazon shares traded at $124 last Friday, helped by a larger tech boom that propelled the S&P 500 Index into a bull market last week, according to a Bloomberg story, the May 25 stock buy had already made him around $10 wealthier. Shares of Amazon have increased by more than 40% so far this year.
Why The Change Has People Scrambling
Reuters: Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, donates $123 million to assist US homeless families.
Amazon experts and market watchers are baffled by Jeff Bezos’ decision because they are unsure of what to make of the lone Amazon stock buy.
One person speculated that Bezos intended to present the actual certificate as a gift, while others quipped that he must have mistakenly pushed the purchase button on his brokerage account, according to the newspaper. Social media was ablaze with its own set of hypotheses.
Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik made fun of the situation by joking that “he needed one more share to take back control.” (Bezos holds voting authority over the 2.9% share that his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, owns in Amazon and controls 9.7% of the company’s stock.
Like everyone else, Shmulik responded in a serious manner with, “I’m trying to figure out what that was about.” Then there’s the hypothesis that Bezos is emulating Elon Musk. Musk has a history of sometimes purchasing, selling, and gifting Tesla shares.
