Jeff Bezos is selling 25 million Amazon shares worth $5 billion, according to a regulatory filing on the day the tech giant’s stock hit a record high.
The proposed sale on Tuesday came as Amazon’s stock closed at $200 per share, its highest price since Amazon’s 1997 NASDAQ listing.
In February, Bezos sold about $8.5 billion worth of Amazon shares in his first sale of company stock since 2021.
Bezos controlled about 10.8% of the company’s outstanding stock, as of a February proxy statement. Bloomberg reported that he would still hold nearly 912 million shares, or about 8.8% of Amazon, following the latest sale.
Amazon’s stock is up more than 30% this year and more than 50% in the past 12 months, marking a big bounce back from 2022 amid the tech downturn. The company reached a $2 trillion market capitalization last week for the first time ever.
Bezos is No. 2 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of $222 billion, up $44.7 billion year-over-year on the strength of Amazon’s stock.
Washington state’s capital gains tax, passed in 2021, imposes a 7% tax on any gains of more than $250,000 from the sale of stocks and bonds, with some exceptions.
Last fall, Bezos announced on Instagram that he was leaving Seattle and making Miami his official residence. Florida does not have a capital gains tax. Like Washington state, Florida also does not have an income tax.
