In 2025, while technology stocks were busy setting new records, the executives behind those companies were equally busy turning their paper fortunes into actual cash. According to Bloomberg’s analysis of insider trading data, these sales totaled more than $16 billion.
Jeff Bezos led the way. The Amazon founder sold 25 million shares for $5.7 billion in June and July. This activity coincided with his wedding to Lauren Sánchez in Venice. Oracle’s former CEO Safra Catz was not far behind, with sales of $2.5 billion, followed by Michael Dell at $2.2 billion.
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang watched his company become the world’s first $5 trillion business and sold $1 billion of his own shares along the way. Arista Networks CEO Jayshree Ullal cashed out nearly $1 billion as demand for the company’s high-speed networking gear soared and her personal net worth crossed $6 billion.
It is important to note that most of these sales happened through prearranged trading plans that executives file in advance. They were not spur-of-the-moment decisions. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg sold $945 million through his foundation, while Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora and Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt each pocketed over $700 million.
The common thread behind all this activity was an AI-fueled rally that kept pushing technology stocks higher throughout the entire year.