Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will officially step down from his role as chief executive officer on July 5, he announced during the company’s annual shareholder meeting.
Bezos, who had announced his decision to step down in February, will hand over the company’s reigns to Andy Jassy, who is currently the CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), reported CNN.
The Amazon founder has been running the e-commerce giant for nearly three decades, making him one of the richest people in the world. Bezos will become Amazon’s executive chair. The timing is “sentimental,” Bezos said as July 5 is the date when Amazon was incorporated in 1994.
“I am very excited to move into the [executive] chair role, where I will focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives,” Bezos said on Wednesday, adding that he expects Jassy to be ‘an outstanding leader’. Bezos had stepped back from much of the day-to-day business over several years, though the pandemic pulled him back last spring.
Meanwhile, Jassy will be replaced by Tableau CEO Adam Selipsky once he takes over the reigns of Amazon, the company had said in March, CNN reported.
Jassy will take over an increasingly complex and scrutinised business, as evidenced both by news early Wednesday that Amazon is buying MGM for USD 8.45 billion and by some of the issues raised at the shareholder meeting shortly after.
During the shareholder meeting, Bezos was asked about the massive size of Amazon’s business, after the District of Columbia filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company on Tuesday, alleging that it has abused its market dominance in e-commerce to harm competition.
“I would say we face intense competition from well-established companies everywhere we do business, in every industry… [Retail is] a very healthy industry and it’s far from a winner-take-all situation,” said Bezos.
