Chief Executive Officer of Amazon Jeff Bezos sold shares worth $3.1 billion in the e-commerce company in recent days. During the first two working days of August, Bezos sold 1 million shares as part of a previously announced trading plan. 

According to Bezos, money that was earned will fund his rocket company, Blue Origin. The statement comes at a time when the company's shares lost more than 73% this year. The latest share sale leaves him with 54.5 million shares worth roughly $174.64 billion at the current market price.

Indeed, Amazon should have a profitable future. However, much of its current growth relates to the nature of the coronavirus downturn rather than the recession it has sparked. On the retail side, a recession unrelated to a pandemic would not have necessarily driven more shoppers online. Moreover, it likely would not have shifted more work to the cloud.

For these reasons, the next recession has the definite potential to affect Amazon negatively. But keep in mind that, despite the severity of this downturn, a 33% reduction in GDP means that 67% of the economic activity remains.