Jeff Bezos to step down as Amazon chief executive

WASHINGTON, United States — Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos is stepping down as chief executive of the company he built from a start-up into one of the world’s most valuable firms.

The world’s richest person based on his Amazon stake, Bezos said on Tuesday he will transition to the role of executive chair in the third quarter, handing over his current role to Andy Jassy, who heads Amazon Web Services.

The news came as Amazon reported a blowout holiday quarter with profits more than doubling to $7.2 billion and revenue jumping 44% to $125.6 billion, as pandemic lockdowns caused online sales to explode around the globe.

In a letter to Amazon employees, Bezos said he would “stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives” but would pivot towards philanthropic initiatives, including his Day One Fund and Bezos Earth Fund, and other business ventures in space and journalism.

“I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring,” Bezos wrote. “I’m super passionate about the impact I think these organizations can have.”

Bezos, 57, founded Amazon in his garage in 1994 and went on to grow it into a colossus that dominates online retail, with operations in streaming music and television, groceries, cloud computing, robotics, artificial intelligence and more. His other businesses include The Washington Post newspaper and the private space firm Blue Origin.

Jassy, Bezos’ successor, joined Amazon as a marketing manager in 1997 and in 2003 founded AWS, the cloud services division of the company which has been one of the most profitable but least-known units of the tech colossus.

“Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have,” Bezos said in a statement. “He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence.”

“Right now I see Amazon at its most inventive ever, making it an optimal time for this transition,” he said.

Vast expansion

Bezos’s tenure at Amazon has been marked by a stunning success over the past few years that has seen a vast expansion globally and surges in profitability. The company is based in Seattle, Washington, and developing a second headquarters outside the US capital.

The company’s market value was some 1.69 trillion as of Tuesday, a 10-fold increase from a decade ago, making it one of the world’s most valuable.

Bezos’s stake makes gives him a personal fortune worth an estimated $196 billion, slightly more than Elon Musk who had briefly captured the title of world’s wealthiest person.

Amazon has faced criticism over workplace conditions at its extensive warehouse operations, but has also led other businesses by guaranteeing a minimum $15 per hour wage and has invested billions in coronavirus mitigation. The company employs over one million people worldwide, including 800,000 in the United States.

The transition comes with Amazon and other large tech firms under heightened scrutiny from antitrust enforcers in the United States and elsewhere for their dominance of key economic sectors, which has become even more pronounced during the pandemic.