Jeff Bezos, the world's third-richest person, did a strange thing two weeks ago: He bought a single Amazon share for $114.77.
This is his first stock purchase in records dating back to 2002. The Amazon founder is best known for selling, having dumped nearly $30 billion worth of stock to fund his various initiatives, varying from the company Blue Origin spacecraft to personal pleasures like his new $500 million superyacht Koru.
After Amazon's initial public offering in 1997, Bezos received no further shares in compensation and accepted only a small salary. He still owns about 10 percent of the company, which accounts for most of his $148 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The May 25 purchase of that single stock boosted his fortune by about $10 as Amazon shares were priced around $124 on Friday, buoyed by a broader rally in the tech sector that sent the S&P 500 index lower this week.
Bezos's move has confused Amazon analysts and stock watchers who don't know what to make of the singular purchase.
Theories abounded on social media: One person speculated that Bezos planned to give the physical certificate as a gift, while others joked that he must have accidentally clicked the buy button on his brokerage account. Amazon and a representative for Bezos declined to comment on the purchase.
"He needed one more share to regain control," joked Mark Shmulik, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein (Bezos owns 9.7 percent of Amazon shares and retains voting control of MacKenzie Scott's 2.9 percent stake, his ex-wife, according to data compiled by Bloomberg).
Shmulik's serious response, like everyone else's, was: "I'm trying to figure out why he did that."
Then there's the theory that Bezos is following the lead of the 'king of memes', Elon Musk.
The Bezos purchase was reported the next day at 4:20 p.m. New York time, according to an SEC filing. He also donated 69,290 shares worth nearly $8 million to a nonprofit organization, according to the document.
The childish humor implicit in the numbers led several people to speculate that perhaps he is trolling us.
