Jeff Bezos sells $3.1 billion of Amazon shares after fortunes soar amid pandemic

The numbers are eye-popping: 1 million Amazon.com Inc. shares offloaded for more than $3.1 billion. And yet for the seller, Jeff Bezos, it barely puts a dent in his stake in the e-commerce giant. The disposal, disclosed Wednesday in Securities and Exchange Commission filings, adds to a $4.1 billion sale earlier this year. The proceeds are a fraction of the amount that Bezos’s holdings have increased this year as the Covid-19 pandemic forced people to stay at home and created a surge in demand for Amazon’s e-commerce services.

For Bezos, 56, this year has been a reversal from years of relative restraint in reducing his stake in Amazon. He still holds more than 54 million shares and is worth $189.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His net worth has surged by $74.9 billion this year with Amazon stock rising 73%.