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Time of India
25-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Who is MacKenzie Scott? Jeff Bezos's ex-wife and philanthropist who has donated over $19 billion so far
Who is MacKenzie Scott? Jeff Bezos's ex-wife | Credit: @OnceRedacted Jeff Bezos, the Amazon billionaire, and journalist Lauren Sanchez are all set to host an extravagant wedding ceremony in the 'Queen of the Adriatic', Venice, on June 27. Bezos and Sánchez were first reportedly linked in 2019, during the time when both parties announced splits from their previous partners. Amid the forthcoming celebrations, the attention has turned to Bezos's ex-wife, American novelist and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. But who is she? Bezos and Scott got married in 1993 in Seattle and had four children together, three sons and one daughter. However, the couple divorced in 2019 after 25 years of marriage. In their divorce settlement, Scott received 25 per cent of their shared Amazon stake, valued at around $36 billion. The billionaire has been married once so far, and the one with Sanchez is going to be the second one. The 61-year-old Amazon founder, one of the richest men on the planet, is travelling to the Italian city with his $500 million superyacht. The multi-day affair includes a ceremony aboard Bezos's $500 million yacht, Koru. Credit: X | @MartinMcSports Who is MacKenzie Scott? MacKenzie Scott, an American novelist and philanthropist who is also one of the richest women in the world, has made headlines in the past for massive donations to hundreds of charities and has given away a total of $19 billion. The 55-year-old philanthropist helped Bezos build Amazon in its early days and remains a significant figure despite avoiding the spotlight post-divorce. The American Book Award winner has since authored two novels and gained recognition as a dedicated philanthropist, making significant impacts in education and racial equity while subtly transforming the landscape of contemporary charitable work. Credit: X | @OnceRedacted MacKenzie Scott's donations: Philanthropic transformation of Jeff Bezos' ex-wife Notably, after the divorce, the Amazon co-founder pledged to give away the majority of her wealth. She has donated over $19 billion to date through her foundation called Yield Giving, which has also been known as a rapid, "no-strings-attached" philanthropist. In the past six years, Scott has donated to over 2,000 nonprofits, proving to have a "transformational effect" on the mentioned organisations. While Jeff Bezos is worth $230 billion, Amazon pays wages so low that thousands of his workers are forced to survive on food stamps, Medicaid & public other words, your taxpayer dollars subsidized his $500 million yacht. Yes. Jeff Bezos is the real welfare queen: — Warren Gunnels (@GunnelsWarren) June 24, 2025 Bezos's ex-wife is also a member of The Giving Pledge, an initiative started by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates that supports organisations addressing poverty reduction, refugee assistance, disaster response, global health, and education. Her donations and generosity have made headlines in the past, but she has rarely given interviews to date and has kept her life quite low-key. Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott's divorce Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott filed for a divorce in September 2022, which was finalised in January 2023. Moreover, after Scott's first marriage to Bezos, she married Seattle science teacher Dan Jewett in 2021, after her first meeting with him at her children's school, as per the Washington Post. For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. First Published: Jun 25, 2025, 11:58 IST Sneha is a dedicated writer with a passion for storytelling that enthrals and inspires the readers. With a background in Health and Wellness, she brings a unique perspective to every narrative. As a journalist, she aims to find solutions with authenticity and credibility. Read More 25/6/2025 12:17:38
Time Magazine
20-05-2025
- Business
- Time Magazine
Cecilia Conrad
In 2023, when Yield Giving founder MacKenzie Scott wanted to give $250 million to 250 charities serving low-income households and people facing discrimination, she turned to Cecilia Conrad for help choosing which groups most deserved the grants. Conrad runs Lever for Change, a nonprofit that connects donors with organizations through 'open calls,' or competitions for funding, then brings in experts to evaluate applicants for financial soundness, impact, and effectiveness. It's a reversal of the typical invitation-only system most foundations use for grants, and gave, on the one hand, little-known nonprofits a shot at significant funding and, on the other, donors a chance to discover compelling new groups to support. The upshot for Scott? Lever for Change identified so many promising organizations that last year she ended up more than doubling her initial pledge, giving away $640 million to 361 groups, chosen from more than 6,000 applicants. Such is the transformative power of Conrad, a Stanford-trained economics professor-turned philanthropy executive who previously led the MacArthur Foundation's Fellows program, aka its 'Genius' grants. She founded Lever for Change in 2019 to dismantle barriers in philanthropy. 'There are donors who want to fund creative, effective organizations and creative, effective organizations who need funding but they have trouble finding each other,' Conrad says. To date, Lever for Change, which has also advised LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, has influenced $2.5 billion in donations to more than 500 charities. And more is coming: The organization is now vetting hundreds more charities to help Melinda French Gates decide how to allocate $250 million to improve women's health. 'We exist to help donors discover new ideas, new potential," Conrad says.
The Independent
19-02-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Jeff Bezos' ex-wife gifts $19billion of fortune in ‘unrestricted' donations post-divorce settlement
Jeff Bezos ' ex-wife has donated $19 billion of her $35.6 billion fortune in 'unrestricted' donations following the hefty divorce settlement that she agreed to five years ago. MacKenzie Scott 's seismic support to over 2,000 organizations, over the last five years has amounted to a staggering $19,250,000,000, according to a report from The Center for Effective Philanthropy and her website Yield Giving. She and Bezos first met in 1992, when they were both working for New York hedge fund D.E. Shaw. They married a year later and in 1994, quit their jobs to move to Seattle to set up an online bookseller from their garage – a venture that became the genesis of Amazon. In Forbes, Scott is listed as having a net worth of $32 billion making her the fifth richest woman in the world. The pair had been married for 25 years until they announced their shocking split in 2019 after which Bezos began dating Lauren Sanchez. At the time, Bezos handed Scott a 4% stake in Amazon, transferring a total of $38 billion in shares into her name. From the onset, the 54-year-old asserted that she had 'a disproportionate amount of money to share' and pledged to work hard at donating it 'until the safe is empty', according to a report from The Guardian from 2019. Scott has supported over 2,450 nonprofit groups from East Texas to northern Tanzania that focus on the arts, affordable housing, education, public health, immigration, and diversity. A full list of her donations is documented on her site Yield. 'I needn't ask those I care about what to say to them, or what to do for them. I can share what I have with them to stand behind them as they speak and act for themselves,' said the billionaire in the CEP report. The CEP said that Scott had 'transformed recipient organizations and influenced many of the communities these organizations serve' – a meteoric effort that was primarily aimed at supporting 'the needs of underrepresented people from groups of all kinds.' Meanwhile, her ex-husband, who is also the owner of The Washington Post has been widely criticized in recent weeks as he joined the other giants of Silicon Valley in attending Donald Trump's inauguration. In December 2024, Amazon revealed it was donating $1 million to the Trump inauguration fund just hours after Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said it had donated $1 million to the presidential pot. Bezos and Sanchez, were pictured alongside the likes of Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai at Trump's inauguration on January 20. When the pair's pricey divorce was finalized in 2019, Bezos praised his wife's commitments to philanthropy, stating: 'MacKenzie is going to be amazing and thoughtful and effective at philanthropy, and I'm proud of her. Her letter is so beautiful. Go get 'em, MacKenzie.' Scott has also fought hard to propel 'The Giving Pledge' – a philanthropic initiative created by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, to encourage the world's richest people to commit to giving away 50 percent of their wealth to charity. Bezos has never signed up to the pledge. CEP Research vice president Elisha Smith Arrillaga commented on Scott's February announcement: 'There is much to learn from the experiences of nonprofits who received grants using Scott's approach. 'These organizations have managed large gifts in strategic ways that have impacted thousands of lives – whether doubling or tripling the number of individuals receiving food from food banks or increasing the number of houses being built in towns across the country, or countless other examples. 'Investing in organizations and leaders that are doing amazing work can have huge impacts on communities.'
