About six million shares each day, at an average price of $171.7 per share.
These sales have helped Jeff Bezos, the second richest man in the world, to pocket 4,121 million dollars (about 3,850 million euros) in four days, according to two communications registered by the founder of Amazon before the Securities and Exchange Commission. of the United States (the SEC).
Bezos told the supervisor this month that he planned to sell a total of 50 million Amazon shares, valued at more than $8 billion, without giving any explanation of the reasons for doing so.
He has started doing it and has already placed almost half of the package in just four days.
The businessman had not sold securities of the company he founded since 2021. He still has in his portfolio, after the latest operations carried out, 964.25 million shares, valued at Amazon's closing price this Tuesday on the stock market at $162.6 billion.
That share package plus other possessions raise his fortune to $197 billion, according to Bloomberg estimates, which places him below Elon Musk ($205 billion worth) and Bernard Arnault ($193 billion).
The sales operations arrive shortly after Bezos has moved his residence from Seattle (Washington) to Miami (Florida) and that may explain why the operations took place suddenly.
In 2022, the State of Washington instituted a 7% tax on capital gains in 2022. Florida, on the other hand, does not have that tax figure, so, since these are shares of the founder in which practically the entire amount of the sale are capital gains, Bezos can save $288.5 million in taxes by having sold as a Miami resident.
The founder of Amazon announced on November 3 that he was leaving the city where he had spent most of his life and which he helped transform with the creation of his e-commerce empire.
He explained it himself through his Instagram account.
He said he was moving there to be closer to his parents and the operations of Blue Origin, his space company.
Bezos last year bought two adjoining mansions on Indian Creek, an artificial island in Miami known as the
billionaire bunker
with 41 residences and a golf club on an area of 1.2 square kilometers.
He paid 68 million dollars for the first and another 79 million for the second, but you can save twice as much in taxes.
Among his illustrious neighbors are the best American football player in history, Tom Brady, and businessmen Jared Kushner and Carl Icahn.
The sales operations of Amazon shares reported by Bezos took place on February 7, 8, 9 and 12, that is, four consecutive business days.
In each of them, an identical number of shares (5,998,849 titles) have been sold in various operations.
The days on which Bezos achieved the most income from his sales were February 9 and 12, with 1,039.7 and 1,039.4 million dollars, respectively, according to the analysis of the operations carried out by EL PAÍS.
On Wednesday, February 7 and Thursday, February 8, it achieved 1,020.7 and 1,021.4 million dollars.
Sales prices have ranged 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) in shares of the company he founded since 2002. The figure between 2020 and 2021 was 18 billion euros ($20 billion).
Bezos continues to be 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.
Revenue of $288 million would have been a major windfall for Washington, which collected $855 million from the capital gains tax last year, more than half of which came from just 10 people, state officials told Bloomberg.
The tax has received some criticism in Washington.
Billionaire Ken Fisher said in March that he would move his company from that state to Texas, criticizing the tax and the court decision that upheld it.
An initiative to repeal the tax could be presented to voters in November coinciding with the presidential election.
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