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Jeff Wilke, a veteran Amazon executive, is set to retire from the company early next year. He has been with the company since 1999.

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Wilke's surprise departure comes as demand for Amazon deliveries has surged during the pandemic.

Wilke has headed Amazon's worldwide consumer division since 2016 and was widely seen as a likely successor to Bezos.

He will be replaced in his role by Dave Clark, Amazon's current senior vice president for worldwide operations. He also joined Amazon in 1999.

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Amazon is facing scrutiny from lawmakers over its competitive tactics. Bezos last month testified on Capitol Hill alongside the CEOs of Apple, Facebook and Google as part of a congressional antitrust probe. 

Bezos had acknowledged then that Amazon might have improperly used third-party seller data to inform its own product decisions — a key concern over the company's approach to competition.