Sure. Breaking leases have costs. But the cases I have some direct experience with are generally simply not renewing them.
For what it is worth, Amazon has built (as opposed to just rent) very large buildings in Seattle, WA and Bellevue, WA. It could be a sunk-cost fallacy sort of deal going on here. They even built giant ~~testicles~~ glass spheres with plants in them.
I don’t think I buy that answer. They’re on the hook for the money either way. Ego?
They lease a lot of buildings too. Paul Allen owned a bunch of the area.
subleasing is an option, though demand is down across the board