Amazon founder Jeff Bezos moving from Seattle to Miami

Jeff Bezos is leaving Seattle, where the billionaire founded Amazon in a garage nearly three decades ago.

In a Thursday night Instagram post, the 59-year-old announced plans to return to Miami — where he spent his high school years — to be closer to his parents and his partner Lauren Sanchez.

Mr Bezos stepped down as the chief executive of Amazon, still based in Seattle, almost three years ago and said in his social media post that operations for his rocket company, Blue Origin, are “increasingly shifting” to Cape Canaveral, about miles north of Miami.

“As exciting as the move is, it’s an emotional decision for me,” he wrote, noting that he has lived in Seattle longer than anywhere else.

Seattle has been Mr Bezos’s home since 1994, when he started Amazon in his garage.

Thursday’s Instagram post included his brief video tour of Amazon’s humble first office, with his father behind the camera.

“It doesn’t take long to tour the offices of Amazon-dot-com Inc,” a young Mr Bezos says in the video, pointing to his desk, a fax machine, and a long orange extension cord to supply the room with additional power.

Mr Bezos, one of the wealthiest people in the world, has lavish properties in Miami, which has already attracted some other big names in tech over recent years.

Last month, Bloomberg News reported that he had bought a mansion in South Florida’s “Billionaire Bunker” for 79 million dollars (£64 million), just two months after buying a neighbouring estate for 68 million dollars (£55 million).

Both mansions are in Indian Creek, an exclusive man-made barrier island in Miami, where celebrity neighbours include American football great Tom Brady, and Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner.

Mr Bezos stepped down as chief executive of Amazon in early 2021, citing the desire to devote more time to philanthropy and other projects, but he still has broad influence over Amazon as executive chairman and the company’s biggest shareholder.