Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Announces Divorce from Wife MacKenzie After 25 Years of Marriage

Jeff Bezos announced in a tweet on Wednesday that he and his wife MacKenzie are divorcing after 25 years of marriage.

Jeff, the 54-year-old founder and CEO of Amazon, revealed on Twitter that he and MacKenzie, 48, have decided to continue their “shared lives as friends.”

“We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other and deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married to each other. If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again,” he added in the statement.

“We’ve had such a great life together as a married couple, and we also see wonderful futures ahead, as parents, friends, partners in ventures and projects, and as individuals pursuing ventures and adventures. Though the labels might be different, we remain a family, and we remain cherished friends.”

Jeff and MacKenzie have four children together — three sons and a daughter.

The couple first met in 1993 at the investment management firm D.E. Shaw in New York City, where he served as vice president. MacKenzie was a research associate and Jeff was the first person to interview her at the firm.

“I think my wife is resourceful, smart, brainy, and hot, but I had the good fortune of having seen her résumé before I met her, so I knew exactly what her SATs were,” he joked to Vogue in 2013.

Jeff and MacKenzie were engaged within three months after their first date, and married within six, according to Vogue. MacKenzie, a novelist, once was an assistant to Nobel laureate Toni Morrison while studying at Princeton.

Soon after they wed, the couple quit their jobs and left New York for Seattle to found Amazon. Jeff founded the Internet giant in late 1994. Last year, it was revealed that 64 percent of households in the United States are Amazon Prime subscribers, Forbes reported.

In 2018, he bested Bill Gates on Forbes’ annual ranking of the world’s billionaires. Today, Bloomberg reports that Jeff’s net worth is now $137 billion, making him the richest person in the world.

Amazon shares dipped slightly immediately following the divorce announcement.

Washington is a community property state, which means that all assets and debts accrued during the marriage are considered owned equally by both spouses, unless there was a prenuptial agreement stating otherwise. It has not been made public whether the couple had a prenup.