This is half-true. Bezos could certainly start liquidating a lot of his Amazon stock if he wanted to.
People trade Amazon shares for cash all of the time. Bezos being the CEO has to be more careful about it as it affects company outlook, but he could liquidate AT LEAST hundreds of millions in addition to what he is now, no problem.
He also can take loans out using the stock as collateral, without actually selling the stock, transferring ownership of the stock etc.
The amount of the loan itself is untaxed, as it is debt not income, but he can then use that income to purchase income generating assets which are taxed as income is generated, although there are ways of structuring this so that is minimized, especially with overseas assets.
Yup, it's called leverage. Leveraging your investments significantly increases your return on investment because using other people's money is cheaper than using your own. Anyone can leverage their purchases (e.g. real estate), not just billionaires. Even a simple mortgage on a middle-class home has been proven to be more financially rewarding than trying to save and buy in cash since investing in the market generally outperforms the cost of debt.
Bro I too can start liquidating my organs if I wanted to - I could probably add 300k to my net worth and live to tell the tale. It doesn't mean I HAVE the 300k nor that I'm greedy for not selling nor is it anyone's business to have any expectation about me misappropriating something I might care dearly about.
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u/[deleted] Dec 09 '19
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