Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos Announces His Move to Miami
On November 2, Bezos announced he is moving back to his high school stomping grounds in Miami after living in Seattle since 1994 when he founded online retailer Amazon out of his garage. He said his parents, Jackie and Miguel Bezos, recently set up shop in the Magic City and that he is following suit.
“My parents have always been my biggest supporters. They recently moved back to Miami, the place we lived when I was younger. (Miami Palmetto High class of ’82 — GO Panthers!) I want to be close to my parents, and Lauren and I love Miami. Also, Blue Origin’s operations are increasingly shifting to Cape Canaveral. For all that, I’m planning to return to Miami, leaving the Pacific Northwest,” Bezos wrote, referencing his spaceflight company.
Bezos bought a $68 million estate on the island of Indian Creek Village in August, then snapped up a neighboring $79 million 14-bedroom mansion in mid-October, according to Business Insider. The Amazon chairman is heading to Miami with his fiancée, media personality and former sports news anchor Lauren Sanchez. His parents reportedly own a home in nearby Coral Gables.
Along with the move’s announcement, Bezos posted an old video of Amazon’s first office in Seattle in the 1990s, a cramped space with clunky CRT computer monitors, a fax machine, and a power cord strung through to bring in extra power.
“I’ve lived in Seattle longer than I’ve lived anywhere else and have so many amazing memories here. As exciting as the move is, it’s an emotional decision for me,” Bezos wrote. “Seattle, you will always have a piece of my heart.”
Bezos is one of several marquee tech-industry leaders who have made the Miami metro area their home over the last three years. New Times’ list of local billionaires details the post-pandemic influx of ultra-wealthy residents to Miami, perhaps most prominently Paypal cofounder Peter Thiel and Citadel hedge-fund chief Ken Griffin. (Now that it’s official Bezos is calling Miami home, he far-and-away tops the list of wealthiest Miami residents.)
Bezos’ new neighbors in Indian Creek Village include investor Carl Icahn and NFL legend Tom Brady. Tucked in Biscayne Bay across from Surfside, the gated, guarded island contains less than 40 residences and is one of the most expensive stretches of property in the U.S. It boasts a golf course, country club, and its own municipality and police force.
Forbes estimates Bezos’ net worth at $161 billion, making him the second-wealthiest person in the nation behind Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The outlet reported that the 59-year-old, who stepped down as Amazon CEO in 2021 and took the role of executive chairman, owns approximately ten percent of the company.
Bezos and his family’s history in Miami-Dade runs deep.
Born in Santiago de Cuba, Miguel Bezos came to the U.S. on a refugee visa after Fidel Castro’s government seized his father’s lumber business following the Cuban Revolution. The elder Bezos stayed at a refugee camp in Miami-Dade County at Camp Matecumbe along with hundreds of other children who were part of “Operation Peter Pan,” an exodus of youth from the island.
Miguel went on to secure a computer science degree from the University of Albuquerque. He married Bezos’ mother Jackie in New Mexico and adopted Bezos before the family moved to Texas while Miguel was working as an Exxon engineer.
The Bezos crew later relocated to Dade County, where Jeff Bezos attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School and, at one point, worked as a cook at a Miami-area McDonald’s. He graduated as valedictorian of his high school class in 1982.
In an interview with the Miami Herald following his graduation, he discussed his plans for real estate development and a desire to build colonies in space. In Wired’s 1999 Bezos profile, Bill McCreary, a longtime Miami Palmetto science teacher, spoke of Bezos’ fascination with space in his teenage years, telling the magazine, “Oh, he had ideas about space promotion.”
Since the days when he last called Miami home, Bezos has built an online retail empire, bought out the Washington Post, and founded Blue Origin, his rocket and spaceflight company.
In July 2021, he traveled to space with his brother Mark Bezos, aviator Wally Funk, and Dutch teenager Oliver Daemen in an automated suborbital flight aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard craft.
