SEATTLE – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will give up his title as CEO of the Seattle-based commerce giant by the end of 2021, the company announced Tuesday in a news release reporting fourth-quarter earnings results.
Bezos, 57, will transition to the role of executive chair of Amazon’s board of directors. He will be replaced as CEO by Amazon Web Services director Andy Jassy.
Bezos had distanced himself from much of Amazon’s day-to-day business in recent years. But he stepped back into the helm during the pandemic, during which Amazon recorded its most profitable year ever. In 2020, sales surged 38% to $386.1 billion, while profit roughly doubled to $21.3 billion, or $41.83 per share, from a year earlier.
In a statement, Bezos said that Amazon’s financial results “are the long-run cumulative results of invention.”
“Right now I see Amazon at its most inventive ever, making it an optimal time for this transition,” Bezos said.
In an email to Amazon employees, Bezos said he intended to focus on new products and early initiatives, as well as “other passions” that include the Bezos Earth Fund; Blue Origin, his secretive space venture; and The Washington Post.
“As much as I still tap dance into the office, I’m excited about this transition,” he wrote. “I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring.”
As chair of the board, Bezos will remain “very involved” on new product development and setting Amazon’s strategic direction, Amazon spokesperson Dan Perlet said in a call with reporters. “Jeff is really not going anywhere.”
Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore and turned it into a retail behemoth. Along the way, he became one of the world’s wealthiest people. Bezos’ net worth is estimated at roughly $196 billion, according to Forbes, largely held in Amazon stock. With 11.1% of Amazon’s outstanding shares, Bezos is the company’s largest shareholder.
Bezos set up the transition to Jassy last summer, when Amazon announced that one of its likely successors, Jeff Wilke, would soon retire. That paved the way for Jassy to take the CEO job. Jassy’s Amazon career is defined by his leading Amazon into cloud computing, a business the company has come to dominate just as aggressively as it leads in e-commerce. He is an Amazon lifer, having joined the company in 1997 after graduating from Harvard Business School.
“Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have,” Bezos said in his email to employees. “He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence.”
