Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, will step down as chief executive and become executive board chairman of the company.
The AP’s Joseph Pisani reported:
Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon as an online bookstore and built it into a shopping and entertainment behemoth, will step down later this year as CEO, a role he’s had for nearly 30 years, to become executive chairman, the company announced Tuesday.
Bezos, 57, will be replaced in the summer by Andy Jassy, who runs Amazon’s cloud-computing business.
Jeffrey Dastin and Akannksha Rana from Reuters wrote:
Bezos is ending his role as CEO on a high note: the business he began as an internet bookseller 27 years ago is now one of the world’s most valuable companies and posted three consecutive record profits after losses in decades prior. On Tuesday, Amazon reported quarterly sales above $100 billion for the first time.
NBC News’ Dylan Byers and Leticia Miranda noted:
The announcement set off alarm bells on Wall Street and throughout the business community, though the transition does not necessarily portend any significant change to Amazon’s business. Amazon reported a year of record growth on Tuesday, including a 38 percent increase in net sales from 2019, netting the company $21 billion in income, nearly double from the year before. Investors didn’t seem fazed by the news, either. Amazon’s share price was up about 1.5 percent following the announcement.
