Jeff Bezos submits a request to sell approximately $4 billion worth of Amazon shares following the stock reaching a $3 trillion valuation.

      Jeff Bezos has submitted a filing to sell 15 million shares of Amazon, valued at around $4 billion based on the company’s closing price from Monday. The Form 144 was submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission and specifies that the shares would be sold through Morgan Stanley according to a pre-established Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted on November 14, 2025.

      This marks Bezos's first significant sale since late 2024 and comes shortly after Amazon became the fifth company ever to reach a market capitalization of $3 trillion. The stock exceeded this milestone on August 3 following a strong Q2 earnings report that propelled the stock up by about 20% year-to-date, outperforming the S&P 500’s 12% increase during the same timeframe.

      The shares being sold are founder shares held since the company was founded in 1994. After this transaction, Bezos will still remain the largest individual shareholder of Amazon by a considerable margin.

      Amazon’s second-quarter earnings, announced last week, reported revenues exceeding $200 billion and a 43% increase in operating income to approximately $27 billion. The AWS cloud division saw a 37% revenue growth, surpassing $42 billion, marking its most rapid quarterly growth in over two years. The company has also revised its full-year capital expenditure forecast to $220 billion, increased from $200 billion, as it seeks to expand data center capacity to meet rising demand in AI and cloud services.

      Following the announcement of the filing, the stock dropped by more than 2% on Tuesday morning, a trend often seen with significant insider sales, even when executed under planned arrangements. CNBC host Jim Cramer referred to the sale as a “buzzkill” for momentum investors benefiting from the rally post-earnings.

      Bezos has a history of selling Amazon shares occasionally to finance other projects, including Blue Origin and his purchase of The Washington Post. In May, he donated 220,200 shares to charitable organizations, a move that did not involve a market sale but still reduced his reported holdings.

      This sale coincides with a broader trend of insider selling across major tech firms, as several founders and senior executives from companies like Nvidia, Meta, and Alphabet have executed substantial disposals in recent months, prompted by peak valuations driven by AI-related earnings growth. Whether such sales indicate real concerns over inflated valuations or standard liquidity events remains subject to interpretation.

      Published August 4, 2026 - 6:32 pm UTC