Jeff Bezos is leaving Seattle, where the billionaire founded Amazon in a garage nearly three decades ago.
In a post Thursday night, Bezos, 59, announced plans to return to Miami — where he lived in high school — to be closer to his parents and his partner, Lauren Sánchez.
Bezos left his role as CEO of Amazon, which is still headquartered in Seattle, nearly three years ago and said in his social media post that the operations of his space rocket company, Blue Origin, are “moving increasingly more ” to Cape Canaveral. Miami is about 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of Cape Canaveral.
“As exciting as the move is, it is an emotional decision for me,” he wrote Thursday, noting that he has lived in Seattle longer than anywhere else.
Seattle has been Bezos’ home since 1994, when he started Amazon in his garage. Thursday’s Instagram post includes a short video of a Bezos-guided tour of Amazon’s humble first office, with her father behind the camera.
“It doesn’t take long to walk around the Amazon.com Inc offices,” a young Bezos says in the video, pointing to his desk, a fax machine and a long orange extension cord that was needed to give the room more energy.
Bezos, one of the richest people in the world today, has luxurious properties in Miami, a city that has already attracted other big names in technology in recent years. Last month, BloombergNews reported that Bezos had bought a mansion in the “Billionaire Bunker” in South Florida for $79 million, just two months after buying a neighboring estate for $68 million.
Both mansions are located on Indian Creek, an exclusive man-made barrier island in Miami. Her famous neighbors include Tom Brady, and Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner.
Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon in early 2021, saying he wanted to dedicate more time to philanthropy and other projects. But he still has broad influence over Amazon as CEO and the company’s majority shareholder.