Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
- Amazon execs pre-empted Jeff Bezos' divorce announcement, according to a new book.
- It said Bezos had apparently taken an unusual interest in helicopters in 2018.
- Details later emerged about the CEO's relationship with helicopter pilot Lauren Sanchez.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Back in 2019, Jeff Bezos announced that he and his wife, MacKenzie, were seeking a divorce.
Only hours later, the National Enquirer reported Bezos had been dating Lauren Sanchez, the owner of Black Ops Aviation and a helicopter pilot. The fallout made headlines for weeks afterwards.
According to a new book, reported on by the New York Post, executives at Amazon pre-empted the divorce when Bezos started taking an unusually keen interest in helicopters, which he had apparently always hated.
The timing was notable given that Sanchez' work centred around helicopters.
The revelations were made in Brad Stone's book, entitled "Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire."
It noted that executives were confused when they realized the budget costs for Black Ops, which Bezos had hired to film a test flight for his enigmatic Blue Origin space venture.
"It was another unfathomable shift to contemplate because as they all knew, Jeff Bezos hated helicopters," wrote Stone, who spoke to Amazon executives as part of his research, per The New York Post.
By the fall of 2018, however, Amazon executives had observed that their usually very attentive boss was preoccupied and increasingly hard to locate, Stone wrote.
The helicopters he once loathed were apparently now capturing much of his attention. It was reported that Bezos' holding company bought one, and Amazon's unfavorable proposal to include helipads at a proposed second headquarters in Long Island City "came right from the top" and helped hasten the deal in 2019, the New York Post reported.
Around the time of the National Enquirer story, Bezos confirmed his relationship with Sanchez but added: "The story is completely wrong and out of order. MacKenzie and I have had good, healthy adult conversations about it. She is fine. The kids are fine. The media is having a field day. All of this is very distracting, so thank you for being focused on the business."
After weathering the tabloid storm, Bezos continued to focus on his business interests, including his Blue Origin space venture.
In February of this year, he announced that he'll step down as CEO of Amazon in the third quarter. Andy Jassy, the CEO of AWS, will take his place.