Bezos to sell up to 50 million Amazon shares by Jan. 31 next year - filing

(Reuters) -Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos will sell up to 50 million shares in the online retail and cloud services firm over the next one year, according to a company filing on Friday.

The securities are worth $8.6 billion at the current price of $171.8 share.

The sale plan, which is subject to certain conditions, was adopted on Nov. 8 last year and will be completed by Jan. 31, 2025, according to the company's latest annual report.

Amazon shares ended nearly 8% higher on Friday after the e-commerce heavyweight reported higher-than-expected sales for the holiday quarter and its lucrative cloud business signaled early gains from AI-powered features.

They had surged more than 80% last year amid a broader rally in tech stocks and outperformed the benchmark S&P 500 index.

Bezos founded Amazon as a bookseller in 1994. He stepped down as its chief executive and took over as executive chairman in 2021.

He is currently the world's third richest person with a net worth of $185 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

(Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)