San Francisco, February 14: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has sold 24 million shares of the company in recent days worth more than $4 billion. The first sale of 12 million shares was announced in a regulatory filing on February 9, followed by another 12 million share sale on Tuesday, reports BBC.

Bezos has also handed away Amazon shares as part of his philanthropic efforts, most recently in 2022. He last sold Amazon shares in 2021. His sales of Amazon shares come after they have increased by almost 70 per cent in the past year, according to the report. Mark Zuckerberg Says Meta Quest 3 Headset Is Better Than Apple Vision Pro and Seven Times Less Expensive (Watch Video).

Earlier this month, the company said that Bezos is planning to sell at least 50 million Amazon shares over the next year. According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Amazon, where Bezos currently serves as executive chair, said its billionaire founder had a trading plan for selling a maximum of 50 million shares. OpenAI Founding Member Andrej Karpathy Leaves Company, Says Not Due to Any Event, Issue or Drama.

The sales will occur "over a period" ending January 25 of next year "subject to certain conditions,” the filing read, reports Fox Business. Bezos, who recently turned 60, owns nearly one billion shares of Amazon stock. Seven other top Amazon insiders took up trading plans for offloading Amazon shares, according to the SEC filing.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 14, 2024 11:54 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).