Jeff Bezos’s Divorce Settlement Makes Ex-Wife MacKenzie the Fourth-Richest Woman in the World
When MacKenzie and Jeff Bezos announced earlier this year that they were filing for divorce, the world wondered how the world’s richest couple’s settlement would stack up against those of other billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and art dealer Alec Wildenstein. This week, we got an answer: In a tweet on Thursday afternoon, MacKenzie announced that, as part of their divorce settlement, she’d given up all of her stake in the Washington Post and aerospace company Blue Origin—both of which her ex-husband acquired in recent years—as well as 75 percent of the Amazon stock she shared with Jeff.
Before you worry that MacKenzie got a raw deal by retaining “only” 25 percent of the shared Bezos Amazon interests—with no shareholder voting power, to boot—bear in mind that, according to estimates from CNBC, MacKenzie’s remaining shares are currently worth approximately $35.6 billion, ensuring that the Bezos divorce is the most expensive in history. It’s unclear how else their shared assets are being split, but that part of the settlement alone makes the novelist and activist the fourth-richest woman in the world, after L’Oréal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, Walmart heiress Alice Walton, and Mars, Inc. heiress Jacqueline Mars, per Bloomberg.
According to an SEC filing on Thursday, MacKenzie’s individual shares now total 4 percent of Amazon’s stock, reportedly making her its third-largest shareholder; Jeff’s own holdings thus comprise 12 percent of the company’s shares, a holding currently estimated to be worth $107 billion. Therefore, even after giving up a whopping $35 billion in the settlement, the Amazon founder is still the richest person in the world. Relatable.
In a tweeted statement released at exactly the same time as his ex-wife’s, Jeff wrote of his continued gratitude for MacKenzie’s support and partnership. “In all our work together, MacKenzie’s abilities have been on full display,” he wrote. “She has been an extraordinary partner, ally, and mother. She is resourceful and brilliant and loving, and as our futures unroll, I know I’ll always be learning from her.”
Jeff, 55, and MacKenzie (née Tuttle), 48, married in 1993, after meeting while both worked at a hedge fund in New York City. According to Bezos lore, MacKenzie drove her husband from NYC to Seattle as he worked on the Amazon business plan; one year into their marriage, Jeff launched the e-commerce giant. They went on to welcome four children together, and have consistently reiterated since their January divorce announcement their plans to continue to amicably coparent.
Related: Will Jeff Bezos’s Divorce Be the Most Expensive Ever?
