OTTAWA — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will step down from his role as chief executive later this year and transition to the role of executive chair, the company said Tuesday. He will be replaced by Andy Jassy, who currently heads the company’s cloud business, Amazon Web Services.
Bezos has been Amazon’s CEO since its founding in 1995. He oversaw its growth from an online bookseller into a $1.7 trillion global retail and logistics behemoth, which has also made Bezos into one of the world’s richest people.
The news came as part of Amazon’s earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2020 — the company handily beat Wall Street analysts’ projections for both sales and profit, capping off a banner year for the company as the pandemic boosted both its retail and cloud businesses.
Amazon shares were flat in after-hours trading Tuesday. The company’s stock has grown nearly 69% over the past year.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
