Jeff Bezos Sold $1.8 Billion of Amazon Stock to Fund Space Venture

According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world. The Amazon founder has just sold $1.8 billion in Amazon stock and he still stands as the world's richest person.

What's Bezos doing with this money? He is pumping it into his space program, Blue Origin, which he views as being more humanity-focused when compared to other space programs.

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A billion dollars a year

As CNN reports, the Amazon CEO sold roughly 960,000 shares, each worth approximately $1,900 on Wednesday, as shown in the company's regulatory filings.

With a net worth of $115 billion, Bezos is selling stock every year to the tune of roughly a billion dollars in order to fund his space venture. 

Blue Origin is aimed at taking the public to Earth's orbit, and professional astronauts even further.

In a recent interview with CBS Evening News, where he was asked why he is investing so much into Blue Origin, Bezos said:

“I think it is important for this planet [that we explore space]. I think it’s important for the dynamism of future generations. It is something I care deeply about. And it is something I have been thinking about all my life.”

CBS NEWS EXCLUSIVE: @JeffBezos wants his space tourism company Blue Origin to be “an instrumental part” of an American return to the Moon; alongside Amb. Caroline Kennedy, he tells @NorahODonnell that space exploration is critical to our survival. https://t.co/XMXbEkrN86 pic.twitter.com/hNfBVIlF6i

— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) July 16, 2019

#NoplanB

Unlike, Elon Musk, Bezos believes there is no plan B for humanity and that we must focus instead on saving our own planet; something that he said space exploration will help to achieve.

Bezos envisions a future in which Earth's industry can be carried out in space, while Earth is only used by humans for residential purposes. He does acknowledge that this change would take "generations" to achieve.

In the CBS interview, he said:

“We send things up into space, but they are all made on Earth. Eventually it will be much cheaper and simpler to make really complicated things, like microprocessors and everything, in space and then send those highly complex manufactured objects back down to Earth, so that we don’t have the big factories and pollution generating industries that make those things now on Earth. And Earth can be zoned residential.”

The stunning Perito Moreno Glacier in Patagonia. We’ve sent robotic probes to every planet in this solar system. Earth is BY FAR the best one. We go to space to save the Earth. @BlueOrigin #NoPlanB #GradatimFerociter pic.twitter.com/8esV18orcJ

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) February 3, 2018

Bezos has also claimed that we shouldn't be focused on going to live on Mars, but rather on making our own planet more liveable.

Space tourism could help with this, the Amazon founder claims, by helping aerospace technology be refined to the point that it is extremely efficient and reliable. This would help to achieve the future that Bezos, and Blue Origin, is aiming to set in motion.