About six million shares per day, at an average price of $171.7 per share. Those sales helped Jeff Bezos, the world's second-richest man, rake in $4.121 million in four days, according to two filings the Amazon founder registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission States (the SEC).
Bezos told the regulator this month that he wanted to sell a total of 50 million Amazon shares worth more than $8 billion, without giving reasons. He started doing this and has already placed almost half of the package in just four days. The businessman had not sold any securities of the company he founded since 2021. In his portfolio, after the last operations carried out, there are still 964.25 million shares, the value of which was 162.6 billion US dollars at Amazon's closing price on the stock exchange this Tuesday.
This stock package and other holdings bring his wealth to $197 billion, according to Bloomberg estimates, putting him behind Elon Musk ($205 billion) and Bernard Arnault ($193 billion).
The sales operations arrive shortly after Bezos moved his residence from Seattle, Washington, to Miami, Florida, and that may explain why the operations occurred suddenly. In 2022, Washington state implemented a 7% tax on capital gains in 2022. Florida, on the other hand, does not know this tax number because it concerns shares of the founder, in which practically the entire sale amount participates. If they are capital gains, Bezos can save $ 288.5 million in taxes by selling as a Miami resident .
The Amazon founder announced Nov. 3 that he was leaving the city where he spent most of his life and which he helped transform by launching his e-commerce empire. He explained it himself via his Instagram account. He said he was moving there to be closer to his parents and the operations of his space company, Blue Origin. Bezos last year bought two adjacent villas on Indian Creek, an artificial island in Miami known as a billionaire bunker with 41 apartments and a golf club covering 1.2 square kilometers. He paid $68 million for the first and another $79 million for the second, but can save twice as much in taxes. His famous neighbors include the best American football player in history, Tom Brady, and businessmen Jared Kushner and Carl Icahn.
The sales of Amazon shares reported by Bezos took place on February 7th, 8th, 9th and 12th, four consecutive business days. In each of them, an identical number of shares (5,998,849 shares) were sold in different transactions. The days in which Bezos received the most revenue from his sales were February 9 and 12, with $1,039.7 and $1,039.4 million, respectively, according to business analysis conducted by EL PAÍS. On Wednesday, February 7 and Thursday, February 8, $1,020.7 and $1,021.4 million were achieved. Selling prices fluctuated between a low of $168.89 per share last Thursday and a high of $175.34 this Monday.
The founder of Amazon has sold more than 28 billion euros ($30 billion) worth of shares in the company he founded since 2002. Between 2020 and 2021 it was 18 billion euros (20 billion US dollars). Bezos remains the main shareholder of the company with 9.3% of the capital, followed by Vanguard, which controls 7.46%, as reported this Tuesday, and by BlackRock, which declared this Monday that it owns 6.1% of the capital has.
Revenue of $288 million would have been a major windfall for Washington, which collected $855 million from capital gains taxes last year, more than half of which came from just 10 people, state officials told Bloomberg. The tax has met with some criticism in Washington. Billionaire Ken Fisher said in March that he would move his business from that state to Texas, criticizing the tax and the court decision that upheld it. An initiative to repeal the tax could go before voters in November, coinciding with the presidential election.
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