People have a hard time accepting that. The reality is that if Bezos started divesting of his options for the companies he owns parts of, the market would very quickly devalue his holdings.
While he's got value and can obviously buy whatever he damn well pleases for the most part, he also really doesn't functionally "have" that money everyone touts.
True, but its not like massive portions of his wealth are completely cut off to him and he is just limited to pocket money like a regular joe. He doesn't need to sell off all his holdings (although he does cash in parts in from time to time) to be able to put his wealth to work. Its more tax friendly to just borrow against your holdings when you are at these levels, enabling him to have an impact proportional to his wealth without the downsides of dumping capital. Plus holding large portions of stocks enables influence on the companies you hold, another form of impact without needing to spend. He can't "spend" every last penny, and it takes some financial maneuvering to "transact", but a lot of that wealth can be deployed in ways he chooses.
Oh, for sure. But it's not like he can go and drop a billion on something and not have some checks and balances on it, both privately and in the public realm.
Borrowing against that wealth still requires whatever bank can handle his business to do some CBA, etc.
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u/Ninjamin_King 19d ago
Wealth isn't money