Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife gifts $19billion of fortune in ‘unrestricted’ donations post-divorce settlement

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Her ex-husband's ex-wife has handed over $19 billion of her $35.6 billion fortune in "unrestricted" donations following a big divorce payout she agreed to five years ago.

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She and Bezos first met in 1992, when they were both working for the New York hedge fund D.E. Shaw. They got married a year later and in 1994, they left their jobs to head to Seattle to set up an online bookstore from their garage – a venture that turned into the start of Amazon.

dating Lauren Sanchez.

from 2019.

Scott has backed more than 2,450 non-profit organisations from East Texas to northern Tanzania that concentrate on the arts, affordable housing, education, public health, immigration and diversity.

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"I don't need to ask the people I care about what to say to them or what to do for them. I can share what I've got with them so they've got me behind them as they speak up and take action for themselves," said the billionaire in the CEP report.

The CEP said that Scott had "transformed recipient organisations and influenced many of the communities these organisations serve" – a meteoric effort focused on supporting "the needs of underrepresented people from all sorts of groups."

has copped a fair dinkum serve in recent weeks for joining the Silicon Valley big guns at Donald Trump's inauguration.

In December 2024, Amazon revealed it was chucking in a million bucks to the Trump inauguration fund just hours after Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said it had coughed up a million clams to the presidential kitty.

Bezos and Sanchez were snapped alongside prominent tech moguls such as Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Alphabet's CEO Sundar Pichai, at Trump's inauguration on January 20.

When the couple's expensive divorce was settled in 2019, Bezos praised his wife's commitment to charity, saying: “MacKenzie is going to be fantastic and thoughtful and effective in her charity work, and I'm proud of her. Her letter is so beautiful. Go get 'em, MacKenzie.”

Scott has also worked hard to promote "The Giving Pledge" – a philanthropic initiative created by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, to encourage the world's richest people to commit to donating 50 per cent of their wealth to charity. Bezos has never signed up to the pledge.

CEP Research vice president Elisha Smith Arrillaga said: “There's a lot we can learn from the experiences of charities that received funding using Scott's method.”

“These organisations have managed big donations in strategic ways that have made a difference to thousands of people – whether doubling or tripling the number of people getting food from food banks or increasing the number of houses being built in towns all over the country, or heaps of other examples.”

“Supporting organisations and leaders who are doing incredible work can have a profound effect on communities.”

Reached out to MacKenzie Scott's representatives for a response.

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