Nov. 3 (UPI) — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced on Thursday that he was moving from Seattle, the home of his e-commerce company, to Miami to be closer to his parents.
Bezos, who stepped down from running Amazon as CEO in 2021, said with his parents moving to Miami and his space business company Blue Origin doing more work at Cape Canaveral, Fla., the move made sense.
He graduated from high school in Miami when his parents lived there previously, the tech billionaire said.
“Seattle has been my home since 1994 when I started Amazon out of my garage,” Bezos said in a message on Instagram with a short video of him in that first office filmed by his father. “My parents have always been my biggest supporters. They recently moved back to Miami, the place we lived when I was younger (Miami Palmetto High Class of ’82 — GO Panthers!).
“I want to be close to my parents, and Lauren and I Iove Miami. Also, Blue Origin’s operations are increasingly shifting to Cape Canaveral. For all that, I’m planning to return to Miami, leaving the Pacific Northwest.”
Bezos left the CEO position at Amazon in February 2021, with Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon Web Services, becoming the new chief executive.
“I’ve lived in Seattle longer than I’ve lived anywhere else and have so many amazing memories here,” Bezos said. “As exciting as the move is, it’s an emotional decision for me. Seattle, you will always have a piece of my heart.”
With a net worth of $161 billion, Bezos is the second richest man in the world behind Tesla’s Elon Musk, according to Forbes.
