Who Owns Amazon? Largest Shareholders

If you're considering an investment in Amazon (AMZN 3.43%) stock, you may be wondering who owns the company. Founder Jeff Bezos launched the company from his garage in Bellevue, Washington, in 1994, back when the World Wide Web was in its infancy. In 1995, it officially launched as an online bookseller.

Since then, Amazon has grown into an e-commerce behemoth that's been referred to as "the everything store." In 2023, it boasted net sales of almost $575 billion. Its market cap as of this writing is around $1.84 trillion.

But Amazon is no longer just an e-commerce company. It's become a disruptor in cloud computing services, with Amazon Web Services, as well as entertainment, with Amazon Prime Video. It's produced an array of hardware devices ranging from the Kindle e-reader, which revolutionized the way people read books, to Echo, the smart speaker service, along with personal speaker Alexa. It's made forays into groceries through Amazon Fresh and its purchase of Whole Foods, as well as healthcare, with Amazon Pharmacy. Now Amazon is also on the cutting edge of various technologies powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

Who owns it?

Who is the owner of Amazon?

As a publicly traded company, Amazon is owned by its shareholders. Anyone with a brokerage account can invest money in the stock.

The e-commerce giant's largest shareholder is its founder, Bezos, who resigned as the company's CEO in 2021 and now serves as its executive chairman. According to Forbes, Bezos was the third-richest person in the world in 2024. As of March 2024, Bezos owned 937,774,000 shares of Amazon stock, which amounts to a stake of more than 9%.

A graduate of Princeton University, Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 from his home garage in Bellevue after quitting his job as an executive at D.E. Shaw. He founded Amazon after creating a list of 20 products he believed could achieve strong sales online and landing on books, with the goal of eventually creating a broader e-commerce retailer.

Bezos took Amazon public in 1997, but the company didn't turn an annual profit until 2003. Bezos also founded Blue Origin, a private spaceflight company, in 2000. In 2013, he became the owner of The Washington Post as well.

Though he stepped down as Amazon's CEO in 2021, Bezos continues to serve as executive chairman of the company's board.

Who are the largest shareholders?

Who are the largest shareholders?

Bezos is Amazon's largest shareholder, but institutional investors own nearly 63% of Amazon's shares. Here's a look at the institutions and individuals that are Amazon's largest shareholders as of Dec. 31, 2023.

Individual investors

1. Jeff Bezos: Owns 937,774,000 Amazon shares, or 9.02% of shares outstanding. Amazon's founder, executive chairman, and former CEO remains its largest stakeholder, with his stake in Amazon worth about $166 billion. Bezos gifted around $240 million worth of Amazon shares in 2023. In February 2024, he shed about $6 billion worth of Amazon stock as part of a trading plan that allows him to sell as many as 50 million shares through January 2025. Other holdings in Jeff Bezos' investment portfolio include Airbnb (ABNB 0.75%), Nextdoor (KIND 1.0%), and Uber Technologies Inc. (UBER -0.38%).
2. Andrew Jassy: Owns 2,069,570 Amazon shares. Amazon CEO Andrew "Andy" Jassy's stake in Amazon is worth around $362 million. Jassy joined Amazon in 1997 as a marketing manager and went on to launch the Amazon Web Services cloud computing platform. Bezos and Amazon's board of directors selected Jassy to succeed Bezos after his 2021 resignation.
3. Douglas Herrington: Owns 522,922 Amazon shares. Herrington is CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, a role he's held since 2022. He joined Amazon in 2005 after founding KeepMedia and serving as its CEO. His stake in Amazon is worth about $91.5 million.
4. Adam Selipsky: Owns 133,583 Amazon shares. Selipsky is CEO of Amazon Web Services and also oversees its efforts to adopt net-zero carbon emissions. Selipsky led Amazon Web Services marketing, sales, and support in its early days, then left in 2016 to become president and CEO of data visualization platform Tableau before returning to Amazon in 2021. His Amazon shares are worth about $23.3 million.
5. Shelley Reynolds: Owns 122,436 Amazon shares. Reynolds is Amazon's vice president, worldwide controller, and principal accounting officer. She joined Amazon in 2006, having previously served as partner at Deloitte & Touche LLP. Her stake in Amazon is worth about $21.4 million.

Institutional investors

1. Vanguard Group: Owns 771,086,427 Amazon shares, or 7.42% of shares outstanding. Vanguard is a registered investment advisor headquartered in Malvern, Pennsylvania, with more than $7.6 trillion in assets under management as of March 2023. Its founder, John Bogle, pioneered low-cost index funds. Several Vanguard mutual funds, including the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, Vanguard 500 Index Fund, Vanguard Growth Index Fund, and Vanguard Institutional Index Fund, hold at least 10 million Amazon shares.
2. BlackRock (BLK 0.69%): Owns 627,171,762 Amazon shares, or 6.04% of shares outstanding. New York City–based BlackRock is the largest institutional money manager on the globe, with more than $9.4 trillion in assets under management. The company owns iShares, the leading provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the world. The iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV 0.98%) owns around 90.5 million Amazon shares, valued at almost $16 billion.
3. State Street (STT 0.14%): Owns 344,669,717 Amazon shares, or 3.32% of shares outstanding. State Street is a Boston-based financial services company with $3.5 trillion in assets under management. It's also the world's largest custodial bank, with $36.7 trillion in assets under custody. It's the creator of the first ETF, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY 0.95%), which debuted in 1993 and currently owns nearly 103 million Amazon shares.
4. Fidelity Management & Research: Owns 316,149,762 Amazon shares, or 3.04% of shares outstanding. Fidelity is a privately held financial services and custodian firm headquartered in Boston. It began as a family-owned business in 1947 and remains under the control of the Johnson family, with Abigail Johnson, granddaughter of founder Edward C. Johnson II, serving as its chief executive officer. Fidelity offers a large selection of mutual funds. Its Fidelity ZERO funds, which launched in 2018, are the first mutual funds to offer a 0% expense ratio. The Fidelity 500 ETF, which is similar to an S&P 500 index fund, owns almost 108 million Amazon shares.
5. T. Rowe Price Group (TROW 4.77%): Owns 192,439,727 Amazon shares, or 1.85% of shares outstanding. T. Rowe Price is a publicly traded financial services company headquartered in Baltimore with $1.51 trillion in assets under management. The company provides retirement accounts and serves institutional customers, including pensions, endowments, and foundation, in addition to individual customers. It also offers a wide selection of mutual funds.

Who serves on the board of directors?

Who serves on Amazon's board of directors?

Amazon's board of directors consists of the following 12 members:

• Jeff Bezos: Amazon's founder and former CEO continues to serve as executive chair of the company's board.
• Andrew Jassy: Jassy was appointed CEO and president after Bezos' departure as CEO and also serves on Amazon's board of directors.
• Keith Alexander: Alexander is a retired four-star general in the U.S. Army who previously served as director of the National Security Agency and chief of the Central Security Service from 2005 to 2014. He founded cybersecurity technology company IronNet and continues to serve as its chair. He joined Amazon's board of directors in September 2020.
• Edith W. Cooper: Cooper is a former Goldman Sachs (GS 1.79%) executive vice president who went on to co-found leadership coaching platform Medley. She has served as an Amazon board member since 2021.
• Jamie Gorelick: Gorelick is a partner with the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. She previously served in various roles for the U.S. government, including deputy attorney general and general counsel of the Department of Defense. She joined Amazon's board in 2012.
• Daniel Huttenlocher: Huttenlocher is the dean of MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and previously served as dean and vice provost of Cornell Tech at Cornell University. He has been an Amazon board member since 2016.
• Judith McGrath: McGrath is the former chair and CEO of MTV Networks Entertainment Group, a division of Viacom, and was part of the team that founded and launched MTV in 1981. She joined Amazon's board in 2014.
• Indra Nooyi: Nooyi is the former chair and CEO of PepsiCo (PEP -0.62%). The government of India honored her with the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third-highest highest civilian honor, in 2007. In the same year, the U.S. State Department named her an Outstanding American by Choice. She has been an Amazon board member since 2019.
• Jonathan Rubinstein: Rubinstein is the former co-CEO of Bridgewater Associates and previously served as a senior vice president of product innovation for Hewlett-Packard (HPQ -0.46%). He became a member of Amazon's board in 2010.
• Brad Smith: Smith is president of Marshall University and the former executive chair, president, and CEO of Intuit (INTU 1.62%). He's been an Amazon board member since 2023.
• Patricia Stonesifer: Stonesifer served as senior vice president of interactive learning at Microsoft (MSFT 1.82%) and went on to serve as CEO and senior advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She later served as president and CEO of nonprofit Martha's Table from 2013 to 2019. She joined Amazon's board in 1997.
• Wendell Weeks: Weeks has been the CEO of Corning (GLW -0.06%), a glass and materials science innovator, since 2005 and chairman of the board of directors since 2007. He has served on Amazon's board of directors since 2016.

How to invest

How to invest in Amazon

Investing in Amazon is pretty easy since it's a publicly traded company. You can buy Amazon stock using your brokerage account. Once you've opened and funded your account, you'll need to enter the ticker AMZN, decide how many shares you want to buy, and place your order.

As of this writing, Amazon was trading for about $175 per share. If that seems too pricey, you can buy fractional shares, which allow you to name your price and receive a corresponding fraction of the stock. For example, you could invest $50 in Amazon and receive about 28.5% of an Amazon share.

You could also invest in Amazon through an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that has exposure to the stock. Here are some ETFs that include Amazon among their holdings:

• Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO 1.0%): Vanguard's S&P 500 ETF -- and any S&P 500 index fund, for that matter, will give you exposure to Amazon stock, as Amazon is one of the largest companies in the index. As of February 2024, Amazon made up 3.74% of the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF's weight. Its expense ratio is just 0.03%, which means you'd pay just $0.30 in fees on a $1,000 investment.
• Global X E-Commerce ETF (NYSEMKT:EBIZ): If you want an ETF that focuses specifically on the growth of e-commerce, check out the Global X E-Commerce ETF. The fund has 40 holdings that include e-commerce platforms, companies that provide e-commerce software and services, and companies that sell goods and services online. Amazon is in its top 10 holdings, making up about 4% of its weight. The ETF's expense ratio is a bit higher, as is typical with specialty ETFs, at 0.5%. That translates to $5 in fees on a $1,000 investment.
• Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF (NYSEMKT:AIQ). Amazon has been a disruptor in the AI space. If you want to invest in Amazon and other companies making major strides in AI and related technologies, consider the Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF. The fund's 85 holdings consist of companies that are developing artificial intelligence technologies or creating hardware that facilitates the use of AI. Amazon is the fund's fourth-largest holding, representing 3.23% of its net assets. The ETF expense ratio is 0.68%, which translates to $6.80 in fees on a $1,000 investment.