Bezos claims he's moving to Florida to spend more time with his family
After shucking his wife for a newer model, Washington Post and Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos threw a big engagement party for himself in Beverly Hills, invited hordes of Hollywood stars such as Barbra Streisand, and now tells the press he's now moving to Florida to ... spend more time with his family.
According to USA Today:
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez's engagement party in Beverly Hills was a swanky affair attended by a who's who of Hollywood.
Vogue reported that the party was held at designer Diane von Furstenberg and businessman Barry Diller's home in Beverly Hills. The magazine took exclusive photos of the soirée, showing celebs like Oprah Winfrey, Salma Hayek and Kris Jenner rubbing elbows with the couple.
“They’re very in love with each other — they’re demonstrably in love,” Diller told Vogue. “She’s lit him up in the nicest ways. She’s a great stimulant.”
Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sánchez's engagement party was a star-studded affair in Beverly Hills https://t.co/BdtCgEVsb0
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) November 15, 2023
Just livin' a 'normal life,' he said. Fox News had some tart commentary on that here.
Jeff Bezos' fiancée insists 'our lives are pretty normal' in glowing piece about $200K dresses, trips to space https://t.co/3cebs1agAw
— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 14, 2023
But buried deeper in the story, there was this:
Earlier this month, Bezos announced that he and Sánchez would be moving to Florida. He said he wanted to live in Miami to be closer to his parents and the Cape Canaveral operations of Blue Origin, his space exploration company.
"I've lived in Seattle longer than I have lived anywhere else," Bezos wrote in an Instagram post. "As exciting as the move is, it's an emotional decision for me. Seattle, you will always have a place in my heart."
The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Network, recently reported Bezos paid $79 million for a seven-bedroom, 14-bathroom mansion set on 1.8 acres in Indian Creek Village, a private neighborhood known as the "Billionaire Bunker."
Which, to say the least, is a little hard to believe. Bezos is filthy rich and can move his parents any place he'd like. That he's moving to Florida, around the same time lots of other billionaires and ordinary people are also moving to Florida, might just be more about escaping punitive taxation and punishing regulation, such as are found in the blue states they are fleeing.
Sure, it really could be his parents that is driving him to move there. His boob-jutting new new cookie should work out just fine on that front.
But more likely, he's moving there for the same reason other people are moving there -- to obtain the tax and regulatory benefits of living in a low-tax red state, such as is run by Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis. He's probably saving millions in taxes. There's also the perk of living in "billionaire's bunker" which has a status of its own.
What's obnoxious here is that Bezos champions and advocates blue state policies. But here he moves to a red state himself, and claims it's just about family, and being near the family rockets and all. What he doesn't do is give DeSantis credit for running a better state than blue Washington and wherever else he has an escape hatch.
Oh, spare us. Coming from Bezos, that's rich.
Image: Twitter screen shot