Jeff Bezos stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021. The transition took effect on July 5, 2021, when Andy Jassy succeeded him as chief executive officer.
Bezos announced the change in February 2021, saying he planned to move into the role of executive chair of Amazon’s board. That position allowed him to remain involved in major company decisions while spending more time on projects including Blue Origin, the Bezos Earth Fund, and other interests.
The change marked the end of Bezos’s day-to-day leadership after he founded Amazon in 1994 and guided its expansion from an online bookseller into a broad technology and commerce company. A common mistake is treating the announcement date and the effective date as the same: the decision was announced in February, but Bezos actually left the CEO role in July.