Amazon founder Jeff Bezos officially stepped down, on Monday, as the company's chief executive in order to focus on "new products and early initiatives".
Bezos handed the role over to Andy Jassy, Amazon’s cloud chief, while he will shift his focus to his space company, Blue Origin.
Furthermore, Bezos is now expected to devote more of his time to a handful of personal projects with a total net worth of $203bn (£146bn) according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The Amazon founder stated that he would be investing more of his time in fighting climate change and overseeing The Washington Post, the newspaper he owns.
He left his current role at the company but isn't leaving Amazon itself. Instead, he's transitioning to the role of executive chair - functioning as a kind of strategic adviser to the CEO.
On his part, Amazon's chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky told reporters: "Jeff is not really going anywhere. It's more of a restructuring of who's doing what."
The world's wealthiest man also retains just over 10% of all of Amazon's shares, which makes him the single largest shareholder and securing his ability to shape the decisions of the new CEO, particularly when they disagree about the firm's strategic direction.
"The fact he is stepping down as chief executive of Amazon doesn't mean he is disappearing; far from it as he is becoming executive chairman," Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, explained.
"The chairman's role is to keep the chief executive in order, so Bezos will still be engrained in the business and be able to provide guidance on a range of strategic issues," Mould added.
"He is also a major shareholder which gives him considerable influence on how the business is run."
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