Jeff Bezos to step down as CEO of Amazon 1:34
(CNN) -
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos stepped down as the company's CEO this year and will become the chairman of the e-commerce giant's board, the company announced.
On July 20, he traveled into space on a short trip in a capsule developed by his company Blue Origin.
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Here's a look at the life of Jeff Bezos.
Personal information
Date of birth: January 12, 1964
Place of birth: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Birth name: Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen
Father: Ted Jorgensen
Mother: Jackie (Gise) Bezos
Marriage: MacKenzie (Tuttle) Bezos (1993-2019, divorced)
Children: an adopted daughter from China and three sons
Education: Princeton University, Bachelor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1986
Estimated fortune: $ 192.6 billion (according to Forbes magazine data on February 4, 2021)
Other information about Jeff Bezos
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Bezos is seen in 1996, a year after Amazon.com started.
At that time it was just an online bookstore.
Dean Rutz / KRT / ABACA / Alamy Stock
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Bezos and Sotheby's President and CEO Diana Brooks pose in a customized Volkswagen Beetle from the 1999 movie "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Sotheby's and Amazon had teamed up to launch sothebys.amazon.com, a online auction site that would offer a wide range of objects, including this car.
Henny Ray Abrams / AFP / Getty Images
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Bezos holds an electric drill and a Pikachu stuffed animal in 1999. At this point, Amazon had started selling items other than books.
Chris Carroll / Corbis / Getty Images
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Gregory Nixon, left, hands over a set of vintage golf clubs that he sold to David Robichaud, center, through Amazon.com Auctions in 1999. Bezos was there for the time, as Robichaud, a worker from construction, was Amazon's 10 millionth customer.
Paul Connors / AP
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Bezos watches as Microsoft CEO Bill Gates presents a T-shirt as a retirement gift to Clippy, the Microsoft Office assistant, in 2001. Microsoft was launching Office XP.
Stan Honda / AFP / Getty Images
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Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, arrive at a press conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, in 2003. They divorced in 2019 after 25 years of marriage.
Douglas C.
Pizac / AP
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Jeff Bezos represents one of Amazon's trademarks on the doors of the company's Seattle headquarters in 2004. Andy Rogers / AP
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Bezos introduces the Kindle e-reader at a press conference in 2007. Mark Lennihan / AP
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Bezos announces the Kindle DX in 2009. James Leynse / Corbis / Getty Images
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Bezos, third from left, meets with NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver at Blue Origin headquarters in Kent, Washington, in 2011. Bezos's Blue Origin was started in 2000 with the goal of providing low-cost access to private space travel.
Bill Ingalls / NASA / e yevine / Redux
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Bezos holds up the new Kindle Fire HD during a 2012 press conference in Santa Monica, California. David McNew / Getty Images
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Bezos appears on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" in 2012. Lloyd Bishop / NBCUniversal / Getty Images
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Bezos introduces the Fire Phone during an event in Seattle in 2014. Mike Kane / Bloomberg / Getty Images
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Bezos poses in a truck while visiting Bangalore, India, in 2014. Manjunath Kiran / AFP / Getty Images
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Bezos tours the new Washington Post offices in 2016. Bezos bought the newspaper in 2013. Bill O'Leary / The Washington Post / Getty Images
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Bezos listens to first lady Michelle Obama at a White House event in 2016. The event announced commitments from more than 50 companies to hire and train veterans and military spouses.
Bezos announced Amazon's commitment to hire 25,000 more military veterans in the next five years.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
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Bezos joins "Transparent" actor Jeffrey Tambor and director Jill Soloway after the Amazon Studios show won Emmy Awards in 2016. Todd Williamson / Getty Images for Amazon Studios
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Bezos talks about his Blue Origin reusable rocket system in 2017. Reusable rockets would substantially reduce the cost of spaceflight.Nick Cote / The New York Times / Redux
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US President Donald Trump and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella listen to Bezos at a meeting of the US Technology Council at the White House in 2017. According to the White House, the council's goal is " explore how to transform and modernize government information technology. "
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
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Bezos shakes hands with Kim Kardashian West while attending the Met Gala in New York in 2019. Actor Jared Leto is on the right.
Kevin Mazur / MG19 / Getty Images for The Met Museum / Vogue
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Bezos with kids from the Blue Origin Club for the Future in 2019. At the event in Washington, Bezos presented a Blue Origin prototype of a lunar lander.
Melissa Lyttle / Redux
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Bezos shows off Blue Moon, the Blue Origin moon landing prototype, in 2019. Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images
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Bezos announces the co-founding of The Climate Pledge in 2019. Bezos's broad plan to fight climate change includes complying with the Paris climate agreement 10 years earlier.
That would make the company carbon neutral by 2040. Bezos also announced that Amazon would buy 100,000 electric trucks.
Paul Morigi / Getty Images for Amazon
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Bezos with Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of the late journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as a plaque is unveiled near the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2019. It was a year after Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, was assassinated.
Lefteris Pitarakis / AP
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Bezos sits between his girlfriend, Lauren Sánchez, and Vogue editor Anna Wintour at a Tom Ford fashion show in Los Angeles in February 2020. Stefanie Keenan / Getty Images for Tom Ford: Fall / Winter 2020 Runway show
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Bezos testifies before a House subcommittee during an antitrust hearing in July 2020. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg were also questioned about their competitive tactics.
Graeme Jennings / Pool / Getty Images
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Bezos posted this photo of himself and his mother, Jacklyn, after the Blue Origin recovery ship was named in their honor.
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He was adopted at a young age by his stepfather, Miguel "Mike" Bezos, an Exxon engineer.
Chronology
1994 -
Leaves DE Shaw & Co. to develop Amazon.
1999 -
Named Person of the Year by Time magazine.
advertising
2000 -
Founded Blue Origin, LLC, an aerospace company to provide low-cost access to private space travel.
2011 -
Bezos and his wife donate $ 15 million to create the Bezos Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics at Princeton University.
November 2012 -
Fortune magazine names Bezos its 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year.
March 2012-2013 -
Leads the privately funded Apollo 11 F-1 engine recovery project team, which, in March 2013, recovers parts of two rocket engines from the Atlantic seabed.
Rockets from the 1969 Apollo 11 mission remain the property of NASA.
August 5, 2013 -
It is announced that Bezos will buy The Washington Post.
Bezos is the owner as of October 1.
January 1, 2014 -
Bezos is evacuated in an Ecuadorian Navy helicopter from the Galapagos Islands after developing kidney stones.
An Amazon spokesperson later reports that he did not require surgery.
November 24, 2015 -
Bezos's company, Blue Origin, successfully lands a rocket on Earth after a space flight.
In the past, rockets were discarded after launching spaceships.
Reusable rockets would substantially reduce the cost of space flight.
Jeff Bezos Names Huge Rocket Recovery Ship After His Mother
Bezos: Travel to space is important for the environment 2:54
July 18, 2016 -
Amazon confirms that Bezos has a cameo as an alien in the movie "Star Trek Beyond."
December 14, 2016 -
Along with other tech executives, Bezos meets with President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower to discuss issues such as education, trade and immigration.
September 5, 2018 -
Bezos contributes $ 10 million to With Honor, a nonpartisan organization and super PAC that aims to increase the number of veterans in politics.
September 13, 2018 -
Bezos announces via Twitter that he and his wife will allocate $ 2 billion to a fund called "Bezos Day One Fund."
The fund will support non-profit organizations that help homeless families and create a network of preschool centers in low-income communities.
Jeff Bezos will contribute US $ 10 billion to combat climate change
January 9, 2019 -
In a joint statement, Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announce that they will be divorcing after 25 years of marriage.
January 31, 2019 -
For the first time, Amazon has annual sales of $ 200 billion.
February 7, 2019 -
In a blog post, Bezos accuses AMI, the editor of the National Enquirer, of attempting to extort money from him, alleging that AMI threatened to post compromising photos of him.
March 6, 2019 -
Haven is announced, the name of the company created by Bezos, Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon to improve the healthcare system.
Cierra Haven, the project of 3 giants that lived 3 years 0:57
March 30, 2019 -
An investigator working for Bezos to find out how evidence of their extramarital affair was provided to the National Enquirer claims that Saudi Arabia had access to the information before the photos and texts were leaked. In an op-ed for the Daily Beast, Gavin de Becker says that the Saudi leadership wanted to harm Bezos because of The Washington Post's coverage of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
April 4, 2019 -
Bezos and his wife announce that they have agreed to the terms of the divorce and that MacKenzie Bezos will keep 25% of the Amazon shares owned by the couple, giving him a 4% stake in the company.
Bezos will retain voting control over all of MacKenzie's shares and will also retain all of his interests in The Washington Post and Blue Origin.
McKenzie Bezos is Amazon's second largest shareholder 1:04
May 9, 2019 -
Bezos presents Blue Origin's new rocket engine and a mockup of the lunar lander that he wants to use to transport cargo or people to the Moon.
The lunar lander's first mission is scheduled for 2024.
February 17, 2020 -
Bezos commits $ 10 billion to the Bezos Earth Fund, a new initiative to support scientists, activists and organizations working to mitigate the impact of climate change.
April 7, 2020 -
Bezos ranks first on Forbes' annual billionaires list, with a net worth of $ 113 billion.
July 29, 2020 -
Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google parent company CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testify before a House of Representatives antitrust subcommittee to address concerns that its businesses may be harming competition.
August 26, 2020 -
Bezos is the first person in history to achieve a cumulative fortune of more than $ 200 billion, according to Forbes.
October 19, 2020 -
Bezos Academy, the first location of a network of free preschools serving children in underserved communities led by Bezos' Day One Fund, opens in Des Moines, Washington.
November 16, 2020 -
Bezos announces that he will award $ 791 million in grants as part of his Bezos Earth Fund to 16 organizations working to protect the environment.
The fund is part of Bezos' $ 10 billion pledge to support scientists, activists, NGOs and organizations working to protect the environment.
February 2, 2021 -
In its earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2020, Amazon announces that Bezos will step down as CEO in the third quarter of 2021. He will move to the role of CEO.
Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy becomes CEO at that time.
April 2021 -
Bezos ranks first on Forbes' annual list of billionaires, with a net worth of $ 177 billion.
May 26, 2021-
During the company's annual shareholders meeting, Bezos announces that he will officially
step down
as CEO on July 5.
That's the anniversary of the date Amazon was incorporated in 1994.
July 15, 2021 -
The Smithsonian announces that Bezos will donate $ 200 million to the museum, the largest gift the institution has received since its founding in 1846.
July 20, 2021 -
Bezos travels to space and returns on an 11-minute journey aboard the rocket and capsule, a system developed by his space company, Blue Origin.
During his post-flight press conference, he announces a new philanthropic initiative that awards recipients $ 100 million to donate to charities and nonprofits of their choice.
The first two winners are Van Jones and José Andrés.
Amazon Jeff Bezos
