Amazon boss and richest man in the world Jeff Bezos is stepping down from his role later this year. The founder of the e-commerce site announced the move in a letter to Amazon employees on Tuesday, citing that the step down would give him more “time and energy” to pursue other projects. He will become executive chairman and Andy Jassy will step in as CEO. Jassy currently leads the company’s cloud computing branch.
Personal Fortune Near $200bn
Bezos founded Amazon in his garage in 1994, originally as an online bookshop. Since then, it has grown into an e-commerce giant employing 1.3 million people worldwide and netting Bezos a personal fortune of $196.2bn. The company has continued to flourish during the pandemic as online shopping became increasingly essential, reporting $386bn (£283bn) in sales last year, doubling profits from 2019 to $21.3bn.
Despite this rosy outlook, Amazon is also facing growing scrutiny from regulators and other tech firms, who question the market dominance and monopoly it holds. In addition, as a public figure, Bezos has come under criticism from inequality activists for his monumental wealth while many Amazon employees, it is alleged, are exploited.
New Projects
Bezos said in his announcement that this was “not a retirement” and that he looked forward to continuing to focus on other ventures – recently he has become involved with the space exploration firm Blue Origin, climate change fighting Earth Fund, and the Washington Post newspaper. He is also not leaving the company, and will still have considerable influence.