Jeff Bezos, will step down as CEO of the company and become CEO of Amazon and remain its largest shareholder, the company said on Tuesday. He will hand over the reins of the CEO to Andy Jassy, ​​head of Amazon’s cloud computing division.

Jassy has been at Amazon for much of his existence and is one of Bezos’ most trusted lieutenants. He played the coveted “shadow” technician role of the CEO – a role in which he accompanied Bezos to all meetings to learn the business – in 2003. After writing the original document that became the Amazon Web Services business plan, he performed the division since its formal launch in 2006.

“As much as I still tap dancing in the office, I’m excited about this transition,” Bezos said in a letter to employees, announcing the end of his 27-year career. He said he plans to devote more time to philanthropy and other outside ventures.

Cloud computing is Amazon’s biggest profit center, although the company continues to profit tremendously from online shopping driven by the pandemic. On Tuesday, Amazon recorded another record quarter, with sales during the holiday season reaching $ 125 billion. AWS alone raised $ 3.6 billion in operating profit – half of the company’s total.

In recent years, Bezos has largely moved away from the daily role of managing Amazon’s business, focusing on long-term projects at the company and its external projects, including the rocket company Blue Origin.

“Jeff will continue to be not only very involved, but also with his fingerprints in many areas of product development and innovation,” Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky told reporters on Tuesday. “So Jeff really isn’t going anywhere, it’s more of a restructuring of who’s doing what.”

Amazon is under increasing scrutiny by regulators and legislators in the U.S. and Europe, who are concerned about their dominance of the market. Last summer, Bezos faced his first questioning in Congress as part of the House Democrats’ investigation, which concluded that Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple are all monopolies. Now it will be up to Jassy to defend the company from critics who say it should be undone.

Tuesday’s announcement also came on the same day as news that Amazon would pay more than $ 61.7 million to settle the Federal Trade Commission’s accusations that the company withheld some tips from its Flex delivery drivers for two years and Midle. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.