Long before Jeff Bezos became the second-richest man on the planet, light years before he served looks as an unlikely style icon, and decades before he hosted a foam party on his $500 million superyacht, Koru, Bezos was just a regular guy with a dream, starting a small business out of a Bellevue, Washington garage.
Within a month of launching his online bookstore, however, Amazon (AMZN), then known as Cadabra, had shipped books to all 50 states and 45 countries. Amazon was growing—fast. Bezos would eventually describe its growth model as a “flywheel,” where lower prices generated more customers, increased traffic attracted more sellers, and greater scale allowed Amazon to reduce prices even further. Just four years after Bezos launched Amazon, his company had grown into the world’s largest online retailer.
But while Bezos controlled 100% ownership of Amazon when he founded it in 1994, he diluted his ownership in order to raise the capital it needed to fuel even greater growth. In 1995, Bezos raised $1 million in seed capital by selling 20% in the company to a cohort of angel investors that included his parents, his brother, and his sister. By the time Amazon made its IPO on May 15, 1997, Bezos owned roughly 43% of the company. After his 2019 divorce from MacKenzie Scott, Bezos’ stake fell to roughly 12% (Scott received about 4% of Amazon’s outstanding shares in the divorce settlement). By the end of 2021, after Bezos had stepped down from the role of Amazon CEO, his stake was 12.7%.
Today, Amazon’s CEO is Andrew Jassy, Bezos’ top adviser and former head of Amazon Web Services. But while Bezos is no longer responsible for the company’s day-to-day operations, he continues to be Amazon’s largest shareholder.
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How much of AMZN does Jeff Bezos own?
As of Amazon’s May 2026 proxy statement, Jeff Bezos owned 950 million shares, equating to about 8.8% of the company.
However, he has since sold and donated millions of shares. According to Bezos’ latest SEC filing, he owned approximately 879.3 million Amazon shares as of Aug. 26, 2026. Those shares were worth $219.2 billion as of Amazon’s September 2026 share price of $249.27.
Amazon is not Bezos’ only major asset. He also owns The Washington Post, aerospace company Blue Origin, and his private investment firm, Bezos Expeditions. He and his second wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, also hold a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio that includes properties in Miami, Beverly Hills, New York, Washington, DC, and Maui.
Is Jeff Bezos the largest individual shareholder of Amazon?
Yes, Bezos remains Amazon’s largest individual shareholder. Current CEO Andrew Jassy holds roughly 2.25 million shares, or a 0.02% stake in the business, worth approximately $562.3 million.
More on founder’s wealth:
Steve Jobs’ net worth: How rich Apple’s founder could have been
Warren Buffett’s net worth: A look at his fortune in retirement
Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth: How the Facebook founder hit $200 billion
Douglas Herrington, Amazon’s CEO of Worldwide Stores and Shelley Reynolds, Amazon’s VP and Principal Accounting Officer, both own less than a 0.01% stake of shares outstanding. Herrington holds 474,638 shares roughly valued at $118.3 million, while Reynolds holds 119,780 shares valued at $29.9 million.
Amazon’s largest institutional shareholders
Institutional investors also hold significant stakes in Amazon. According to 13F filings for the quarter ending June 30, 2026, BlackRock held approximately 748.4 million Amazon shares, while Vanguard Capital Management and State Street held approximately 635.7 million shares and 397.2 million shares, respectively.
FundSharesValueTotal valueSource: OxfordledgeBlackRock Inc.748,403,539$178.4 billion13.2%Vanguard Capital Management, LLC635,764,130$151.5 billion11.2%State Street Corp. 397,186,958$94.7 billion7.0%FMR LLC365,660,364$87.2 billion6.4%Geode Capital Management, LLC233,211,684 $55.4 billion4.1%Morgan Stanley179,376,541$42.8 billion3.2%JPMorganChase & Co.167,979,147$40.3 billion3.0%Invesco Ltd.143,818,328$34,3 billion2.5%Norges Bank140,565,601$33.5 billion2.5%Vanguard Portfolio Management LLC121,626,899$29.0 billion2.1%
Given AMZN’s September 2026 share price of $249.27, that means that not even the company’s three largest institutional shareholders have as big a stake in the company as Bezos himself.