Jeff Bezos sells Amazon shares worth $2.5 billion

Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, the world's richest person, sold $2.4 billion of the retail giant's stocks under a pre-arranged trading plan.

The amount he has unloaded this week comes to almost $5 billion. Bezos sold off 739,032 shares under a pre-arranged trading plan, Bloomberg reported, citing US Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

It comes days after he sold an identical amount. Bezos said earlier this week in a filing that he plans to offload as many as 2 million shares.

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He continues to hold over 10% of Amazon, which is the prime source of his $192.1 billion fortune, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. 15 years after Amazon went public in 1997, Bezos sold around a fifth of the online retailer for approx. $2 billion.

His stake's value has gone up to such an extent in recent years that Bezos can now sell comparatively small amounts for billions of dollars. He had unloaded stock worth over $10 billion last year.

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Amazon rallied 76% last year as the coronavirus pandemic stimulated people to do online shopping. The retail giant's stock is up 1.1% this year.

Bezos has used equity sales to finance rocket company Blue Origin, whilst he has committed $10 billion to the "Bezos Earth Fund" to help offset the effects of climate change.