American author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott is best known as the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos. As of September 2022, she is worth $32 billion because she has a 4% stake in Amazon, which she and Jeff Bezos started.
Scott is the 21st richest person in the world and the third-richest woman in the United States. Forbes named Scott one of the most powerful women in the world in 2021, and Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2020.
Net Worth: | $32 Billion |
Date of Birth: | Apr 7, 1970 (52 years old) |
Place of Birth: | San Francisco, California, U.S. |
Gender: | Female |
Profession: | Novelist |
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Early Years of MacKenzie Scott
MacKenzie Scott Tuttle was born in April 1970 in San Francisco, California. She grew up in Marin County, just across the Golden Gate Bridge.
Her family also lived in the Pacific Heights district of San Francisco. Jason Baker Tuttle, her father, owned a financial investment firm.
MacKenzie attended the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut, for high school. Her parents declared bankruptcy during her junior year after her father was the focus of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.
Her parents relocated to Florida, where her father failed in his attempt to launch a new financial profession. Her father was ultimately barred from establishing a new financial enterprise.
In his decision, the Florida judge cited the family’s previous extravagant expenditures. MacKenzie went to Princeton University after high school to study English.
She received her diploma in 1992. In a creative writing workshop at Princeton, she studied under renowned novelist Toni Morrison. MacKenzie was later described by Morrison as “one of the best students I’ve ever had.”
Meeting Jeff Bezos
MacKenzie relocated to New York following his graduation from Princeton with the goal of becoming a novelist. She obtained employment as an administrative assistant at the hedge fund D.E. Shaw to help support her way of life till that dream came true.
Fellow Princeton alumnus and business senior vice president Jeff Bezos was one of the persons she helped in this role. A wall connected their workplaces. She finally advanced to a position directly under Bezos as a research associate.
After meeting in 1992, Jeff and MacKenzie dated for about three months before getting engaged. In 1993, they got hitched. He was 29 while she was 23.
What is Mackenzie Scott’s Net Worth?
MacKenzie Scott, formerly known as MacKenzie Bezos, is a novelist, philanthropist, and activist from the United States.
According to celebritynetworth, MacKenzie Scott has a net worth of $32 billion as of this writing. Her fortune would be considerably larger, but she donated $6 billion to charity in 2020 alone.
She intends to contribute the vast majority of her fortune throughout her lifetime and has already given more than $12 billion to hundreds of charity around the world as of this writing.
More on her altruism can be found later in this article. On July 13, 2020, MacKenzie attained the title of richest woman in the world for the first time as Amazon broke the $3,300 per share barrier.
Actually, she didn’t retain the title for the entire day. By the end of the trading day, Amazon had lost several percentage points, handing Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers the victory once again.
A few months later, MacKenzie started giving vast sums of money to charities, which made it extremely harder for her to keep her title as the richest woman in the world.
She is well-known for being Jeff Bezos’s wife from 1993 to 2019. Together, Jeff and MacKenzie are parents of four kids.
Since 2018, Jeff has held the title of world’s richest person. He has been a billionaire for more than 20 years.
Mackenzie Worked as Bookkeeper for Amazon
Around the time of their wedding, Jeff developed a fascination for the nascent “World Wide Web.” He chose to open an online bookshop since books don’t go bad and don’t need to be tried on or even handled before purchase, according to folklore.
Jeff was aware that an online “e-commerce” store could be lucrative. Jeff received crucial support from MacKenzie in order to pursue his goals.
In order for him to pursue his internet goals, they mutually decided in 1994 to leave their comfortable careers and homes in NYC and relocate to Seattle.
As they travelled across America in the Volvo, MacKenzie was the driver, and Jeff was in the passenger seat brainstorming and using a laptop to write his e-commerce business plan.
Jeff and MacKenzie came up with an extensive list of several items that may be offered online. Jeff finally decided on books. He originally gave the company the moniker Cadabra.
Later, he settled on the name Amazon, which was inspired by the Amazon River in South America. On July 5, 1994, Amazon was established in their Seattle garage.
Jeff started out with a $300,000 angel investment from his parents. MacKenzie worked as a secretary and bookkeeper for Amazon.
She also studied novel writing at the University of Washington at this time. After another ten years, MacKenzie finally published her own made-up book, “The Testing of Luther Albright.”
Apparently, fewer than 2,000 copies of the book were sold. She published a second book in 2013 with the working title “Traps.”
How Did She Become the Third-richest Woman in America?
Amazon launched their initial public offering on May 15, 1997. Amazon finished its first day of trading at $2 per share after correcting for stock splits.
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A single share of Amazon is now worth more than $3,000. If you had invested $10,000 in Amazon at the time of its IPO, you would now have more than $15 million.
Jeff controlled 20% of Amazon at the time of its IPO. He repeatedly sold off chunks of equity to create liquidity throughout the years.
Jeff’s share sales have earned $70 billion in liquid cash as of this writing. He owned 16% of Amazon prior to their divorce settlement.
Jeff became a billionaire for the first time in June 1998. He was valued $10 billion at the height of the dotcom bubble.
His net worth fell back to $2 billion after the bubble broke. His net worth surpassed $50 billion for the first time in June 2015.
It surpassed $100 billion for the first time in January 2018. It surpassed $150 billion in July 2018. His net worth has ranged between $150 and $200 billion in recent years. Amazon shares momentarily broke the $3,300 barrier on July 13, 2020.
MacKenzie’s net worth would be the highest in the world at any price above $3,255. So, on July 13, 2020, MacKenzie Bezos will become the world’s richest woman for the first time.
Settlement of Mackenzie Bezos’ Divorce
After 25 years of marriage, Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos announced their divorce on January 9, 2019. They got married in 1993, as we just mentioned, one year PRIOR to Jeff founding the business that would eventually make him the world’s richest person.
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When they announced their divorce, Jeff’s net worth was $136 billion. By all accounts, since Jeff’s assets were all obtained during their marriage, MacKenzie might have been entitled to half of them. If such were the case, MacKenzie might have received shares and other assets worth up to $70 billion.
Complete Settlement
On April 4, 2019, MacKenzie tweeted that she and Jeff had reached an agreement over their divorce and that she had received just under 20 million Amazon shares, or around 4% of the total number of outstanding shares of the company.
These shares were traded for $35.6 billion at the time. Jeff retained around 60 million shares, or 75% of their prior ownership.
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MacKenzie’s agreement to let Jeff have all voting rights over her shares was a big compromise. She effectively receives all the value without any voting rights.
Second Wedding of MacKenzie
In March 2021, MacKenzie announced her recent marriage to Dan Jewett, a science teacher at a high school. Dan is a teacher at the prestigious Lakeside School, where Paul Allen and Bill Gates were both students.
In a statement on her Giving Pledge page, she announced the news and mentioned that her new spouse had agreed to her commitment.
Dan is such a fantastic guy, and I am delighted and excited for both of them, Jeff Bezos thanked the couple in a statement issued by an Amazon official.
Even MacKenzie’s Amazon author bio has been amended to reflect that she “lives in Seattle with her four kids and her husband, Dan.” A King County, Washington court document from September 2022 revealed that MacKenzie had requested a divorce from Dan.
Actual Estate
A residence in Beverly Hills, California, cost $24 million to buy in 2007 for Jeff and MacKenzie. They invested a total of $37 million on the two properties in 2017, each paying $13 million for the one just next door.
This home was given to MacKenzie as part of their divorce agreement. MacKenzie gave the house to the charity, the California Community Foundation, it was revealed in August 2022.
The foundation estimates that the home was worth $55 million at the time of the donation. 2021 saw MacKenzie give the group $20 million.
A 3.2-acre waterfront property in Medina, Washington, was purchased by MacKenzie in 2019 for $37.5 million.
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