Amazon founder Bezos plans move to Miami from Seattle

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said he was moving to his childhood home of Miami from Seattle to be near his parents and his space firm Blue Origin’s Cape Canaveral operations.

“As exciting as the move is, it’s an emotional decision for me. Seattle, you will always have a piece of my heart,” the billionaire said in an Instagram posr

The post included a video of Bezos in Amazon’s first office in Seattle, where he founded the e-commerce company out of his garage in 1994 and grew it into one of the biggest retailers in the world.

Private space company Blue Origin’s operations are increasingly shifting to Cape Canaveral, Bezos added.

Amazon’s rapid growth transformed Seattle’s South Lake Union district, replacing warehouses and parking lots with offices towers, highly paid tech workers and expensive eateries. The growth contributed to an economic boom and rising rents.

In his post, Bezos called Seattle his home since 1994, but Amazon was actually born east of the city in a garage in Bellevue, Wash. That 3-bedroom home went on the market in 2019. “It doesn’t take long to tour the offices of Amazon.com Inc.,” Bezos says.

Twenty-nine years later, Amazon employs 1.5 million people globally and 75,000 in the Seattle region as it has grown into one of the world’s most valuable companies.

Beyond its sprawling urban headquarters in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, Amazon today has a large presence in Bellevue as well as across the country with a Northern Virginia “HQ2.”

Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon in 2021 but remains executive chairman. At the time, he expressed his desire to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, his Blue Origin space venture, The Washington Post, and other passions.

Bezos and ex-wife MacKenzie Scott divorced in 2019 after 25 years of marriage.Reports last month tied Bezos and fianceè Lauren Sanchez to the purchase of a $79 million mansion in a Miami enclave called Indian Creek.