SEATTLE — Jeff Bezos is leaving Seattle.
The Amazon founder said Thursday he was moving to Miami after nearly 30 years in the Puget Sound region to be closer to his parents and the site of Blue Origin’s operations in Cape Canaveral.
“I’ve lived in Seattle longer than I’ve lived anywhere else and have so many amazing memories here,” Bezos wrote in a post on Instagram announcing the move. “As exciting as the move is, it’s an emotional decision for me.”
Bezos moved to the area in 1994 when he started Amazon out of his garage in his Bellevue home. Since then, the company has exploded to include roughly 65,000 employees between Amazon’s campuses in Seattle and Bellevue. Amazon set up shop in South Lake Union in 2010 and has since become its own economic ecosystem with 10 million square feet of space and room for more than 50 retailers.
As it continued to expand, Amazon announced a second headquarters in Arlington, Va., in 2017.
Bezos ran the company until 2021 when he stepped down as CEO and handed the reins to Andy Jassy. Today, Bezos is still Amazon’s executive chair.
In 2000, Bezos started another venture, Blue Origin, a rocket and space tech company that is headquartered in Kent. The company has a manufacturing complex and rocket factory in Cape Canaveral where it built and launched one of its rockets.
Bezos bought a waterfront mansion in Florida in August and then bought the neighboring home in October. He paid $68 million for the first sale, an estate in Indian Creek, a man-made barrier island in the larger Miami area. He paid another $79 million for the seven-bedroom mansion next door.
Besides the Indian Creek homes, Bezos has homes in Washington, D.C., a 9-acre Beverly Hills mansion, a ranch in Texas, an estate in Maui and properties in New York and Seattle. He also owns one of the world’s most expensive superyachts, the Koru, which launched this year and cost an estimated $500 million to build.
Bezos said Thursday his parents had recently moved back to Miami, where they had lived when Bezos was growing up and in high school.
“My parents have always been my biggest supporters,” he wrote in the announcement. “I want to be close to my parents and Lauren [Sanchez] and I love Miami.”
“Seattle, you will always have a piece of my heart,” he wrote.
