After 19 years in Seattle, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced Thursday that he is shipping himself off to Miami.
“I want to be close to my parents, and Lauren and I love Miami,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “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,” he added.
The Amazon founder isn’t just moving into any old beach mansion. Bezos, one of the richest people in the world, is reportedly moving to Indian Creek Island, a man-made barrier island known as the “Billionaire Bunker,” where he has purchased not one, but two multimillion-dollar properties in recent months.
Bloomberg reported that Bezos shelled out $68 million for a three-bedroom mansion on the island in June, and in October purchased a neighboring property for $79 million.
The island — home to the likes of Tom Brady, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and Carl Icahn — has intense security measures to protect its wealthy inhabitants from just about anything (the hoi polloi, the Spanish Armada). It has its own police force, a marine patrol to prevent outsiders who may lurk on the water, and armed security officers who guard the only road in and out of the island, Forbes reported.
In what could only be a serendipitous coincidence, Washington state recently passed a capital gains tax — which Florida does not have — that would have seen Bezos fork over $70 million in taxes for every $1 billion of Amazon stock he offloads, according to CNBC wealth reporter Robert Frank.
The billionaire also has a vast real estate portfolio. He owns several apartments in New York City, a ranch in Texas, a museum-turned-home in Washington, D.C., a mansion in Los Angeles, and an estate in Maui. He also owns the world’s largest sailing yacht, which was estimated to cost $500 million to build.
Of course, Bezos enjoys a luxury of mobility that regular people, including Amazon employees, do not. The Seattle Times reported that the company has begun laying off workers for not adhering to its new back-to-office mandate, which essentially forced many employees to choose between uprooting their lives and relocating, or risk losing their jobs.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.









