Jeff Bezos was still driving his 1997 Honda Accord in 2013
Yes, he was already a billionaire
He’s spoken out on why

Jeff Bezos might now fly and sail in luxury, but he was still driving his 1997 Honda Accord in 2013.

He was already a very wealthy man by that point.

He’s spoken out on why, as a billionaire, he didn’t upgrade sooner.

Honestly, it makes a lot of sense.

The billionaire driving a 1997 Honda Accord

He might have founded Amazon.com Inc. and flit between the first and second spot of Forbes Real Time Billionaire list – but the car he was driving in 2013 was remarkably modest.

The current world number two according to Brad Stone’s, The Everything Store, continued driving a 1997 Honda Accord.

It’s in stark contrast to his recent purchase of a $80 million Gulfstream G700 private jet.

Forbes

He also owns a $500 million superyacht with eyewatering upkeep costs.

Earlier this year, Jeff Bezos acquired a third mansion on the exclusive Billionaire Bunker Island for $90 million.

That’s not to mention the $42 million he spent building a clock that will outlast human civilization.

His reasoning for the car? “

This is a perfectly good car,” he said in a 60 Minutes interview with Bob Simon in 1999.

While Amazon was a 5-year-old online bookstore at the time – it was still eyebrow-raising due to his then net worth of about $8 billion.

Other frugal facts about Jeff Bezos

Gulfstream

Amazon’s headquarters were, at the time, sitting between a heroin needle exchange and a pornography store.

Simon, seeing also Bezos’s desk made from a wooden door and 4x4s, asked why he hadn’t moved the office to a swanky location.

Bezos replied: “It’s a symbol of spending money on things that matter to customers.

An approach that sits aligned with one of Amazon’s core leadership principles: “Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention.”