Andy Gacy will raise $214 million in Amazon stock after taking over Jeff Bezos

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Andy Gacy, CEO of Amazon, is set to receive a stock package worth more than $200 million when Jeff Bezos takes over as CEO on Monday.

In a regulatory filing on Friday, the company said it had approved a plan for 61,000 shares — to vest over the next 10 years — and elected the 53-year-old to the company’s board of directors.

Gacy has been at Amazon since 1997, and is stepping down as CEO of AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, which he has led since its inception in 2006.

He will take over the position on July 5, the company’s 27th anniversary, in what will be Amazon’s first-ever leadership transition.

Bezos will become CEO, and he has said he plans to devote more time to personal pursuits, such as space travel and his ownership of the Washington Post.

Amazon stock finished the week at $3,510.98, bringing Jassy’s prize to just over $214 million. However, the value can be much higher once given in full: In the past 10 years, Amazon’s stock price has risen more than 1,500 percent. It currently has a market capitalization of $1.77 trillion.

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Jassy’s award comes in addition to the 88,538 shares he already owns, according to S&P Capital IQ, and 48,756 shares yet to be awarded by the end of 2020.

This ownership has already made Jassy the company’s second largest individual shareholder, after Bezos, who has a stake of $176 billion.

Amazon has not set any performance targets in connection with the award. A company spokesman declined to comment.

Huge stock grants are typical of executives at big tech companies who hold senior positions. In 2012, Apple awarded Tim Cook one million restricted stock units, valued at the time $376 million, as he took over the position from the late Steve Jobs.

In 2019, Sundar Pichai acquired $276 million in stock and options in Google-owner Alphabet, dependent in part on meeting performance targets.

Satya Nadella, who was named CEO of Microsoft in 2014, earned $59 million, also on a performance basis.

Additional reporting by Richard Waters in San Francisco

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