Which CEO succeeded Jeff Bezos as CEO of Amazon in 2021?

Andy Jassy succeeded Jeff Bezos as CEO of Amazon in 2021.

Amazon announced the leadership transition in February 2021, with Bezos moving into the role of executive chair and Jassy becoming chief executive in the third quarter. Jassy formally took over on July 5, 2021—the same date Amazon was incorporated in 1994.

Jassy was not an outside hire. He joined Amazon in 1997 and became one of Bezos’s closest executives. He helped build Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud-computing division, and led AWS as its chief executive from 2016 until the succession. That experience made him a natural choice to lead a company increasingly dependent on technology and cloud infrastructure as well as retail.

A common mix-up is assuming Bezos left Amazon entirely. He remained executive chair and continued to influence the company, while Jassy became the day-to-day CEO. Jassy is therefore the canonical answer, not Bezos, Satya Nadella, or Tim Cook.