Washington (AFP)
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates set out to heal the world.
Ted Turner has piloted yachts.
Donald Trump entered politics.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos now wants to build rockets and save the planet.
At 57, the richest man in the world is following in the footsteps of many leaders who have decided to cede - temporarily or permanently - the executive functions of a company that made them rich to devote themselves to others. activities.
Jeff Bezos announced on Tuesday that he would cede his post as general manager of Amazon this year.
He will remain chairman of the board of the company he founded 27 years ago, but he wants to devote more time to his other passions.
At the head of a fortune estimated at 197 billion by Forbes magazine, Mr. Bezos also owns the daily Washington Post, the space company Blue Origin and the Bezos Earth Fund, a fund dedicated to the planet.
Before him, Bill Gates, 65, and Paul Allen, who died of cancer in 2018 at the age of 65, founded Microsoft in 1975, a group that would become the world leader in computer software.
In 2000, Mr. Gates resigned as CEO and, with his wife, launched the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with the aim of improving the health of people around the world.
- Sportsmen -
Paul Allen, whose fortune was estimated at $ 20 billion by Forbes at his death, had left Microsoft in 1983 during his first battle with cancer while remaining on the board until 2000.
His passion was sport.
So he acquired national basketball teams, the Portland Trail Blazers, and American football teams, the Seattle Seahawks.
At the same time, he donated billions of dollars, notably for medical research.
For his part, Ted Turner, 82, turned his father's advertising company into a multi-billion dollar company, launching the Cable News Network - the famous CNN channel - and also buying sports teams, Atlanta Braves. (baseball) and the Atlanta Hawks (basketball).
But his real passion was the sea. At the head of the sailboat "Courageous", he even won the America's Cup in 1977 against the Australian Challenger.
A number of executives have wanted to put business aside to enter politics, the most recent example being that of former US President Donald Trump, a real estate mogul who successfully ran for the House. White in 2016.
Michael Bloomberg, founder of the eponymous financial information company, attempted a foray into the 2020 presidential election, without success.
Elected mayor of New York in 2001, Mr. Bloomberg, 78, was re-elected mayor of the Big Apple in 2005 and 2009.
- Space -
For Jeff Bezos, as for others, the eyes are riveted far beyond the blue planet.
His company Blue Origin aims to build a spacecraft and a lunar lander capable of providing cargo deliveries and habitat modules to the Moon.
Richard Branson, 70, founder of the Virgin Group, also owns a space flight company, Virgin Galactic.
Its ambition: to make space tourism affordable.
But it's Elon Musk, another billionaire, who is leading the space race.
Second richest man in the world (behind Jeff Bezos), South Africa-born Mr. Musk is now known for his Tesla electric cars.
It was by selling PayPal to eBay in 2002 that he made his fortune and was able to launch his luxury electric vehicle company as well as the solar energy company SolarCity.
That same year, he also created SpaceX, which has since become the world's first private rocket launch company, sending commercial satellites into space and delivering goods to the International Space Station.
SpaceX was also the first private company to launch men into space last year when it sent astronauts to the International Space Station.
Elon Musk also intends to achieve a "symbiosis" between humans and artificial intelligence with his start-up Neuralink, specializing in implants for the brain.
© 2021 AFP