Jeff Bezos Sells $1 Billion USD of Amazon Stock to Fund Space Exploration
Jeff Bezos drops $1 billion USD of Amazon stock to head into space.
Today, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos sold close to $1 billion USD of company stock in order to continue funding his space exploration venture Blue Origin L.L.C., according to a filing with the SEC.
The large-scale sale is part of an annually scheduled divestiture. Speaking to journalists at the U.S. Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Bezos stated: “My business model for right now… is I sell about $1 billion USD of Amazon stock and I invest it in Blue Origin.”
Bezos, a noted space enthusiast, intends for Blue Origin L.L.C. to become a profitable, self-sustaining enterprise that will allow millions of people to live and work off Earth, reaching orbit in reusable rockets and capsules. Although those ambitions lay further into the future, Bezos has stated that he will spend “what it takes” to realize them.
Despite the outlay, Bezos – who also owns the Washington Post – still retains 79.9 million shares, amounting to 17 percent of the company. In recent times, Amazon’s increasing e-commerce business model and profitable cloud computing service have helped to reposition its founding CEO as the third richest man in the world, behind only Bill Gates and Spanish entrepreneur Armancio Ortega. According to Forbes, Bezos has a net worth of $78 billion USD.
