Started as an online bookstore in 1994, Amazon has grown into one of the world’s largest technology and retail conglomerates. Its scale is massive: it is the world’s biggest online retailer, with annual sales of over $716 billion. [1]
In 2025, the company reached its all-time peak market capitalization of approximately $2.91 trillion. As of 2025, Amazon hosts more than 300 million active customers worldwide and over 9 million registered sellers, of whom roughly 2 million are active.
Given its size and influence, the question “Who owns Amazon?” isn’t just academic. It helps explain who holds real power, control, and influence over one of the most important companies in the world.
In this article, I will unpack Amazon’s ownership structure from multiple angles: public vs private status, top shareholders, founder stakes, board and voting power, strategic partnerships, and ultimately, who really controls Amazon today.
Quick AnswerAmazon is not owned by a single individual, government, or private group. Instead, it is a publicly traded company owned by millions of shareholders around the world.
Approximately 64.9% of Amazon’s shares are held by institutional investors, including Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street. Founder Jeff Bezos holds about 8.9% of the company. The general public owns roughly 25.9% of the shares, while government and state entities together account for 0.1%.
Table of Contents
1. Is Amazon Public or Private?
Amazon is a publicly traded company, which means ownership is distributed among public investors, institutional shareholders, and individual stakeholders who buy and sell its stock on the open market.
The company went public on May 15, 1997, offering 3 million shares at $18 each. By the end of its first day of trading, the stock had already risen sharply. [2]
Since then, Amazon has executed several stock splits, including multiple splits in the late 1990s and, most recently, a 20-for-1 split in 2022. This has increased the number of shares outstanding and made trading more accessible to a broader range of investors.
The shares are listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol AMZN. It is included in major market indices such as the Nasdaq-100 and the S&P 500, reflecting its stature as one of the largest US public companies by market cap.
2. Top Shareholders of Amazon
Amazon’s ownership is spread across large institutional investors, company insiders and executives, and millions of retail investors and public companies worldwide.
2.a) Institutional Investors
| Investor | Number of Shares (Percentage) |
| Vanguard Group | 845.4 million (7.91%) |
| Blackrock | 722.3 million (6.76%) |
| State Street Corporation | 381.6 million (3.57%) |
| Fidelity Management & Research | 328.8 million (3.08%) |
| Geode Capital Management | 222.6 million (2.08%) |
| JPMorgan Chase & Co | 182.6 million (1.71%) |
| Morgan Stanley | 162.8 million (1.52%) |
| T. Rowe Price Group | 142.9 million (1.34%) |
| Norges Bank Investment Management | 125.06 million (1.17%) |
| Northern Trust Corporation | 97.05 million (0.91%) |
Collectively, more than 5,920 institutional investors hold approximately 6.9 billion Amazon shares, representing about 64.9% of the company’s outstanding stock.
2.b) Insider & Executive Ownership
Even though Amazon is a public company, the founder and insiders still hold modest ownership stakes.
| Name (Role) | Shares Owned (Percentage) |
| Jeff Bezos (Founder & Executive Chair) | 333 million (8.9%) |
| Andrew Jassy (CEO) | 2.2 million (0.02%) |
| Douglas Herrington (CEO of Amazon Stores) | ~512,000 (0.0048%) |
| Adam Selipsky (Former CEO, AWS) | ~150,000 (0.0014%) |
| David Zapolsky (Senior VP, Global Affairs) | ~140,000 (0.0013%) |
Jeff Bezos remains the largest individual shareholder of Amazon. His stake is valued at over $203 billion. Furthermore, current individual insiders (including Bezos and Jassy) hold approximately 966.7 million shares, which represents roughly 9.01% of the total shares outstanding.
2.c) Retail Investors & Private Companies
| Entities | Number of Shares (Percentage) |
| General Public | 2.7 billion (25.9%) |
| State or Government | 10.8 million (0.101%) |
| Public Companies | 10 million (0.093%) |
| Private Companies | ~724,748 (0.0067%) |
Taken together, the general public, private and public companies, and government entities hold approximately 26.1% of Amazon’s total shares outstanding.
3. Founder Ownership of Amazon
Amazon was started in 1994, and for much of the company’s early history, Jeff Bezos was not only the founder and CEO but also the dominant shareholder. This gave him near-total influence over the company’s long-term strategy.
When Amazon went public in 1997, Bezos owned well over 43% of the company. Over time, his ownership stake has steadily declined due to planned stock sales, diversification, and personal commitments. [3]
Since the early 2000s, Bezos has sold tens of billions of dollars’ worth of shares, primarily to fund other ventures like Blue Origin, philanthropy initiatives, and personal portfolio diversification. Despite these sales, he remains Amazon’s largest individual shareholder by a wide margin.
When he stepped down as CEO in 2021, he owned 14.1% of the company. Today, he is still the largest individual shareholder, holding more than 963 million shares, roughly 8.9% of Amazon’s outstanding shares.
4. Current Board of Directors
Amazon has 12 members on its Board of Directors. They oversee the company’s long-term strategy, monitor management performance, and act in the best interest of shareholders.
| Name | Notable Background |
| Jeffrey P. Bezos (Executive Chairman) | Founder of Amazon |
| Andy Jassy (President & CEO) | Led AWS from inception |
| Keith B. Alexander | ex-Director of the US National Security Agency |
| Edith W. Cooper | Former Executive Vice President at Goldman Sachs |
| Jamie Gorelick | Senior partner at WilmerHale |
| Daniel Huttenlocher | Dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing |
| Andrew Ng | Co-founder of Coursera and DeepLearning.AI |
| Indra Nooyi | Former CEO and Chair of PepsiCo |
| Jonathan Rubinstein | Former leader at Apple and Palm |
| Brad D. Smith | President of Marshall University |
| Wendell Weeks | Chairman, CEO of Corning Inc |
| Patricia Stonesifer | Former President, CEO of Martha’s Table |
The board comprises a combination of executives and independent directors. The most prominent insider on the board is Jeff Bezos, who serves as Executive Chairman after stepping down as CEO in 2021. The CEO, Andy Jassy, also serves on the board, ensuring executive leadership is directly represented at the governance level. [4]
The rest consists primarily of independent directors with backgrounds in technology, finance, consumer businesses, and public policy. This independence is important: it means that, in theory, no single individual ( including the founder) can unilaterally dominate board decisions without broader shareholder support.
5. Voting Power: Single-Class Share Structure
Amazon operates with a single class of common stock, with each share carrying one vote. Unlike dual-class structures used by some tech companies to grant founders disproportionate control, Amazon’s voting power aligns directly with share ownership.
Since Amazon’s common stock follows a one-share, one-vote rule, those with the largest share positions hold corresponding voting power.
There are no special founder shares with super-voting rights (unlike other tech giants like Alphabet or Meta). This means Jeff Bezos does not retain disproportionate voting control through a separate class of shares
Institutional investors, who collectively control roughly 64.9% of Amazon’s outstanding shares, form a major voting bloc. However, these holdings are typically spread across multiple funds managed by large asset managers such as Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street, rather than concentrated under a single controlling entity.
So who holds real power?
Because all shares carry equal voting rights, voting power in practice tends to concentrate among large institutional investors simply because they own more shares. Collectively, Amazon’s top five institutional holders own about 22% of the company, giving them significant influence over board elections and key governance proposals.
Jeff Bezos retains significant influence as the largest individual shareholder and Executive Chair, but major strategic decisions generally require broad backing from institutional shareholders and independent board members.
Retail investors, although individually small in voting power, collectively form a meaningful part (25.9%) of Amazon’s shareholder base. They can participate in voting (just as institutional investors do) via brokerage platforms and electronic proxy systems.
6. Strategic Stakeholders or Partners
Amazon’s global scale depends heavily on deep, long-term partnerships across technology, logistics, manufacturing, content, and payments. These partners don’t own Amazon, but they are structurally critical to how the company operates.
TSMC
Amazon contracts TSMC to manufacture its custom processors for cloud computing and AI workloads, including the Trainium series (AI training chips) and Graviton CPUs. In this relationship, TSMC acts as the foundry, using its advanced semiconductor process technologies (like 3 nm, 5 nm nodes) to produce Amazon’s custom chips. [5]
Arm
Amazon licenses ARM’s CPU architecture to design its own high-performance, energy-efficient processors for the cloud. These CPUs are branded AWS Graviton and are used exclusively inside Amazon Web Services. [6]
Foxconn
The partnership with Foxconn is primarily centered on hardware manufacturing and supply chain support, rather than cloud or software.
Foxconn manufactures several Amazon consumer devices, most notably Echo smart speakers, Fire TV devices, and other Alexa-enabled hardware, across its factories in China, Taiwan, and increasingly India. This partnership allows Amazon to scale hardware production rapidly while keeping unit costs low. [7]
UPS and FedEx
Even though Amazon has built a large in-house logistics network, it still depends on key transportation partners. For example, UPS and FedEx continue to deliver some Amazon packages, especially during busy periods like the holidays and in rural or hard-to-reach areas. [8]
Over the past decade, Amazon has intentionally reduced its reliance on UPS and FedEx by building its own delivery network, Amazon Logistics. Today, Amazon operates its own vans, cargo planes through Amazon Air, and a network of last-mile delivery partners.
7. Who Really Controls Amazon?
Power and influence at Amazon are distributed across a governance system, with different players exercising authority and influence in different ways.
The Board of Directors Holds Strategic Control
In practical terms, control flows through the board of directors and executive leadership. The board sets strategic oversight, approves major capital decisions, and evaluates senior management performance.
CEO Andy Jassy and his leadership team control daily operations, investment priorities, and execution across Amazon’s sprawling businesses, from AWS to logistics to advertising.
As long as Amazon delivers acceptable financial performance and strategic clarity, institutional investors tend to support existing leadership, reinforcing management’s control. Only sustained underperformance, regulatory crises, or governance failures would shift this balance.
Founder’s Influence
Jeff Bezos remains the single most influential individual at Amazon (but not a controlling one). With roughly 8.9% ownership, he lacks the voting power to dictate outcomes on his own. Amazon’s single-class share structure offers him no special voting rights or formal control protections.
Yet influence is not purely mathematical. As founder, long-time CEO, and current Executive Chairman, Bezos retains outsized informal power.
His strategic philosophy (long-term thinking, reinvestment, customer obsession) continues to shape Amazon’s culture and decision-making. In board discussions and leadership transitions, his voice carries disproportionate weight, even without majority ownership.
Institutional Investors Hold Influence, Not Control
Institutional investors own a large portion of Amazon’s shares. In fact, the top 10 institutional investors together hold more than 30% of the company, making them the biggest group of owners compared to individual insiders.
While these investors don’t run Amazon day-to-day, they still have a strong influence. They use their voting power during shareholder meetings to weigh in on key decisions such as board appointments, executive compensation, and major governance matters.
Conclusion
Amazon is best described as a publicly traded company with distributed control. Its direction and priorities are shaped through a balance of institutional investor influence, board governance, and executive leadership, with Jeff Bezos remaining a highly visible strategic voice rather than an absolute controller.
Read More
- 17 Amazon Competitors and Alternatives
- Amazon SWOT Analysis [Detailed View]
- Walmart Marketing Strategy: 16 Proven Ideas
- Company Financials, Amazon revenue throughout the years, Macrotrends
- Anna Fleck, The Big ‘What If’: Amazon Went Public in 1997, Statista
- Chris Katje, Jeff Bezos owned 43% Of Amazon at IPO, Benzinga
- Investor Relations, Details of officers and directors, Amazon
- Azim Siddique, TSMC certifies Siemens EDA tools on AWS for N2/N3 process node, Amazon
- Tom Simonite, Amazon is designing a chip to make cloud computing more efficient, Wired
- Nick Statt, Amazon partners with a Foxconn-owned subsidiary, TheVerge
- News, Amazon signed on a new shipping partner after UPS pulled back, Inc
