Find out MacKenzie Scott's Net Worth—And How Much She's Given Away Since Split with Jeff Bezos

MacKenzie Scott’s net worth has allowed her to give back in major ways. Unlike many billionaires, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos isn’t waiting to donate significant amounts of her wealth. Instead of growing her fortune, Scott seems to see now as the prime time to focus on philanthropy.

“I have a disproportionate amount of money to share,” she wrote in a public letter following her 2019 divorce. “My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care. But I won't wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”

In the years since, Scott, who married Bezos years before Amazon’s inception, has certainly followed through with her promise. She’s given away billions (yup, billions with a B) after signing the Giving Pledge, an initiative founded by Warren Buffett and former couple Bill and Melinda Gates, which encourages the extremely wealthy to promise to give away half of their income. Keep reading for everything we know about MacKenzie Scott’s net worth—and just how much she’s given away.

Did MacKenzie Bezos start Amazon?

MacKenzie Scott met Jeff Bezos while working at the New York hedge fund D.E. Shaw, where they had offices near one another. They wed three months after they started dating. “I do remember the first time I heard him laugh,” she told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2005. “I met him at the hedge fund where we worked in New York … I would hear him laughing all day. I fell in love with his laugh.”

To follow Bezos’ dreams of launching an e-commerce site, Scott then drove them across the country to Seattle while he began formulating business plans for the start-up. As the story goes, they brainstormed the company’s name together and she supported him while Amazon was just a fledgling e-commerce site selling books. "I'm not a businessperson,” she once told CBS. “So to me, what I'm hearing when he tells me that idea is the passion and the excitement ... And to me, you know, watching your spouse, somebody that you love, have an adventure—what is better than that, and being part of that?"

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What is MacKenzie Scott’s net worth?

As of writing, MacKenzie Scott’s net worth is an estimated $43.6 billion, according to Forbes.

What does MacKenzie Scott do?

While Scott is best known for her philanthropy—and her record-breaking divorce settlement with Amazon founder and executive chair Bezos—she’s also the author of two novels under the name MacKenzie Bezos: The Testing of Luther Albright, published in 2005, and Traps, published in 2013. She told Vogue in 2013 that it had taken “a lot of tears” to finish her first novel, which was later named a Los Angeles Times “book of the year” in 2005.

How much did MacKenzie Bezos get?

Scott split with Bezos in 2019. “As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends," the couple said in a joint statement on Bezos' Twitter account at the time. "If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again.”

Scott followed up the announcement with a Twitter statement of her own, writing in part, “Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support from each other and everyone who reached out to us in kindness, and looking forward to [sic] next phase as co-parents and friends.”

When the divorce was finalized, Scott—who announced she’d dropped Bezos from her name in 2020—reportedly walked away with 25% of her billionaire ex’s fortune in the form of Amazon stocks worth about $36 billion. Following their split, she handed over her interest in Bezos-owned aerospace company Blue Origin and The Washington Post to him, as well as voting control over her Amazon shares. The pair, who share four children, hold the record for the costliest divorce in history.

Related: A Billion-Dollar Breakup Lesson: Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos Announce Divorce

How much money has MacKenzie Scott given away?

In the last two years alone, Scott has given away $12.5 billion to more than 1,250 organizations, according to Forbes. Her unprecedented rate of donating hasn’t depleted her fortune yet, however; in 2021, she still ranked as the fourth richest woman in the world and the 30th richest person.

Her total donations far exceed those of her ex-husband, who has not agreed to the Giving Pledge. The agreement was signed by Elon Musk, currently the world’s richest man, as well as several other top CEOS. Bezos has applauded his ex-wife’s philanthropic efforts, however, as he tweeted a link to her Giving Pledge letter in 2019. “MacKenzie is going to be amazing and thoughtful and effective at philanthropy, and I’m proud of her,” he wrote at the time. “Her letter is so beautiful. Go get ‘em MacKenzie.”

Related: Jeff Bezos' Spaceflight Rocket-Launched a Lot of Phallic Memes and Hilarious Reactions

What charities does MacKenzie Scott give to?

Scott has donated to thousands of charities over the years and has continued to be transparent about how she spreads her fortune. She shared an update on her pledge in July 2020, writing in a Medium post at the time, “There’s no question in my mind that anyone’s personal wealth is the product of a collective effort, and of social structures which present opportunities to some people, and obstacles to countless others.” She proceeded to share a long list of organizations to which she donated to a total of over $1.7 billion so far, including $568.7 million to organizations that support racial equity, $46 million to those that promote LGBTQIA+ equity, and $133 million to those championing gender equity.

Later in 2020, she shared another update on Medium, writing amid the COVID-19 pandemic that she’d “asked a team of advisors to help me accelerate my 2020 giving through immediate support to people suffering the economic effects of the crisis.” She donated to a total of 384 organizations at the time, writing: “Some are filling basic needs: food banks, emergency relief funds, and support services for those most vulnerable. Others are addressing long-term systemic inequities that have been deepened by the crisis: debt relief, employment training, credit and financial services for under-resourced communities, education for historically marginalized and underserved people, civil rights advocacy groups, and legal defense funds that take on institutional discrimination.”

Following her 2021 nuptials with Jewett, she announced on Medium that they’d donated another “$2,739,000,000 in gifts to 286 high-impact organizations in categories and communities that have been historically underfunded and overlooked.” Jewett wrote his own Giving Pledge letter the same year, writing in part: “I have been a teacher for the majority of my life, as well as a grateful student of the generosity of those around me. This has meant doing my best to follow their example by passing on resources of all kinds—from time, to energy, to material possessions—when I have had them to give. And now, in a stroke of happy coincidence, I am married to one of the most generous and kind people I know—and joining her in a commitment to pass on an enormous financial wealth to serve others.”

Most recently, Scott has also donated large sums to individual organizations. In February 2022, she gave $133.5 million to Communities in Schools, a non-profit that works with schools to help at-risk students. A month later, she gave $436 million to Habitat for Humanity International and 84 of its US affiliate organizations.

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