Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is aiming to raise about $100 billion for a new fund to buy up manufacturing companies disrupted by AI, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday—a move likely connected to his secretive AI manufacturing startup Project Prometheus.
Key Takeaways
- Bezos is in early talks to raise $100 billion for the fund, the Journal’s report said—about three weeks after the Financial Times first reported on the fund.
- Bezos was also in talks with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (the United Arab Emirates’ sovereign wealth fund), as well as JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, according to the Financial Times report.
- Bezos more recently traveled to Singapore to raise money for the fund, according to the Journal.
- The fund is designed to be a “manufacturing transformation vehicle,” according to investor documents seen by both outlets—connecting it to Project Prometheus, the secretive AI startup Bezos founded in November dedicated to using AI for engineering and manufacturing.
- The existence of Project Prometheus was first reported last November, and with Bezos serving as co-CEO in his first executive role since stepping down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021.
Key Background
The existence of Project Prometheus was first reported last November, and was immediately estimated to have $6.2 billion in funding, some of which reportedly came from Bezos. The billionaire is also serving as co-CEO alongside Vikram Bajaj, the co-founder of Google Life Sciences, now known as Verily—a research division of Alphabet. The new company is Bezos’ first time in the CEO role since stepping down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021. David Limp, the CEO of the Bezos-founded space company Blue Origin, was also appointed to Project Prometheus’ board of directors, according to the Journal. Project Prometheus signed a lease last year for 30,000 square feet of office space in San Francisco’s Financial District, the San Francisco Standard reported earlier this month. However, the company is now searching for more office space at least twice the size of its original lease, according to the report.
Forbes Valuation
We estimate Jeff Bezos’ net worth at $222.3 billion, making him the fourth-wealthiest person in the world. Bezos’ massive fortune is only behind Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The majority of his wealth comes from his estimated 9.6% stake in Amazon, which he founded in 1994 and took public in 1997.
This story was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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