A surprising announcement has been made by Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon that he will step down, while the online retailing giant is facing unprecedented scrutiny in Washington — from antitrust probes and criticism over its role as a gatekeeper granting other companies access to the web.
The company announced ahead of its latest quarterly earnings call on Tuesday that Bezos “will transition to the role of Executive Chair in the third quarter of 2021 and Andy Jassy will become Chief Executive Officer at that time.”
Apparently it is the biggest transition of power to date for the tech behemoth, which rose from humble beginnings as an online book-selling platform to become one of the first trillion-dollar companies in history, with a sprawling footprint that includes e-commerce, cloud computing, music and video, and brick-and-mortar retailers like Whole Foods.
"Right now I see Amazon at its most inventive ever, making it an optimal time for this transition," Bezos said in a statement announcing the move.
In an email to employees, he added that he will spend more time focusing on other "passions," including his space company Blue Origin and his ownership of The Washington Post, a role that made him the continual focus of broadsides from Trump. "I’ve never had more energy, and this isn’t about retiring," he wrote.
As chief of Amazon Web Services, the company’s lucrative cloud pision, Andy Jassy played a role in Amazon’s decision last month to boot the conservative-friendly social media platform Parler from the internet after last month’s Capitol riots. AWS is also embroiled in a court battle over a multibillion-dollar cloud contract that the Pentagon awarded to Microsoft, amid heavy scrutiny from former President Donald Trump. Antitrust advocates including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have specifically cited AWS as a piece of Amazon that the federal government should break off to lessen the company’s power.
Bezos, though, isn’t walking away from some of the company’s highest-stakes decisions, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said on an earnings call shortly after the news broke.
“Jeff will be the executive chair on the board,” said Olsavsky. “He will be involved in many large, one-way-door issues, as we say — meaning the more important decisions, things like acquisitions, things like strategies, and going into grocery.” (“One-way-door” is a favorite Bezos phrase for decisions nearly impossible to reverse.)
He will also continue to loom large in Washington — as the owner of both the Post and D.C.'s largest private house, and as Amazon plans a new headquarters that would spiral into the skyline across the Potomac in Arlington, Va.
Bezos, long holding the title of world’s richest person, has net worth is estimated at $188 billion.
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