We recently compiled a list of the Jeff Bezos Investments in 2025: 12 Companies Bezos Is Investing In. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Air Transport Services Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATSG) stands against the other companies Bezos is investing in.
Since leaving his position as CEO of Amazon in 2021, Jeff Bezos has been quite active. He has been investing in real estate and companies, staying involved with Amazon and Blue Origin, and becoming close to President-elect Trump. “I’ve actually never worked harder,” he told the New York Times last December.
Jeff Bezos has directly invested in at least 108 startups across all industries since 1998, when he was reported to have invested $250,000 into Google. Although he does not publish his returns nor do the firms in which he invests, he has made early bets on several companies that have gone on to launch some of the most high-profile tech IPOs in the recent decade.
He certainly has enough cash to play with. According to Forbes, Bezos has sold around $32 billion in his main company shares since its initial public offering, including nearly $14 billion last year. He is now the third richest person in the world, with a net worth of $237 billion.
Although Bezos has spent a lot of time and money on yachts, aircraft, and real estate since transitioning from CEO to chairman of Amazon in 2021, he remains actively involved in his venture portfolio, advising portfolio firms and assisting with investment selections. However, Bezos isn’t as engaged as, say, a typical large venture capital firm: he was only the lead investor in one funding round last year (for Swiss-Mile), which means he likely didn’t acquire significant stakes in the majority of the companies, and he isn’t known to hold a board seat at any of the startups he has backed.
Two of the companies Forbes contacted said that a Bezos spokesman asked them not to discuss with the media about the Bezos investment, but those who did speak favorably about it. Swiss-Mile’s Bjelonic, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder, made the following comment:
“What I was most surprised with was actually how well he understood the technology behind the Al training. He would ask questions about reinforcement learning, imitation learning, how it works, going all the way to the details of the physics elements that are needed on our side.”
Regardless of how invested Bezos is in any given company, publicizing his name as an investor provides marketing exposure.
The autonomous robot business is still in its early stages of commercialization. Bjelonic compared the business to a “blue ocean,” predicting that in ten years, hundreds of robotics startups will fail while only a few will flourish. It will take years to determine whether those bets pay off.
However, the chances may be in Bezos’ favor, in part because he can combine his economic expertise with the fact that he will almost certainly be able to invest in any firm he chooses.
According to Columbia Business School professor Michael Ewens, the “best” and “hottest” startups reach out to people like Bezos first.
“In general, he’s a very good investor, because he’s getting calls. He’s first in line.”
A wide angle shot of a modern commercial jetliner ascending in the sky.
Methodology
We examined the investments of Bezos Expeditions, Jeff Bezos’ family office, to identify key companies he’s invested in. All selected firms are publicly traded except the last one, and the stocks are ranked in ascending order using Insider Monkey’s database of over 1,000 hedge funds in Q4 2024 to gauge hedge fund sentiment for stocks. The portfolio also includes one of his most recent private company investments, which is ranked last on our list.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
Air Transport Services Group Inc. (NASDAQ:ATSG)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 26
Air Transport Services Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATSG), a leading provider of aircraft leasing and air transportation services, specializes in medium-wide-body freighter aircraft. It provides a distinctive Lease+Plus aircraft leasing possibility within the aviation industry through its varied companies. The North American and European markets account for the majority of the company’s sales. It is included in the Jeff Bezos Stock Portfolio, having increased by more than 1% so far this year.
Amazon owns roughly 20% of the cargo logistics and aircraft leasing industries. This collaboration is based on the obvious advantage of connecting the e-commerce giant’s shipping demands with a logistics service that can help push the pile of products. Air Transport Services Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATSG)’s collaboration with Amazon began in early 2016 with an agreement to operate an air cargo network by leasing 20 dedicated Boeing 767 freighter planes. In an age when Amazon appears to be acquiring complementary pieces of the online retail puzzle, it may be worthwhile to stake out a position in this company, as Jeff Bezos did, due to its synergistic potential.
Air Transport Services Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATSG)’s leasing division benefited from strong demand, with four Boeing 767-300 freighter leases signed in the third quarter of 2024. However, third-quarter profitability was impacted by higher expenses and fewer block hours flown. By the end of 2024, the firm intends to sign three additional leases for freighters owned by CAM and expects significant benefits in its ACMI Services division as a result of contractual price increases.
On November 5, 2024, Air Transport Services Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATSG) announced that it had entered into an acquisition agreement with Stonepeak for $22.50 per share. Truist analyst Michael Ciarmoli increased his price target for the stock from $15 to $22.50. In a research note, the analyst informs investors that Stonepeak’s implied take-out multiple for the deal is 20% lower than peers’, but this is likely justified given recent operating performance, pilot union contract unknowns, and greater exposure to older freighter platforms as opposed to newer passenger variant aircraft.
Overall ATSG ranks 10th on our list of Jeff Bezos’ investments in 2025. While we acknowledge the potential for ATSG as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ATSG but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
