Mackenzie & Jeff Bezos Have Settled Divorce Terms, Which Still Makes Her The 3rd Richest Woman
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie have announced that they¡¯ve finalized the terms of their divorce. The two are splitting after 25 years of marriage, and the deal they¡¯ve worked could make her the third richest woman.
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie have announced that they've finalized the terms of their divorce.
The two are splitting after 25 years of marriage, and the deal they've worked could make her the third richest woman on the planet.
Images courtesy: Reuters
In a Twitter post yesterday, Mackenzie announced that she's granting her ex-husband all of her interests in Washington Post and Blue Origin, as well as 75 percent of their joint stake in Amazon. She's also giving his voting control over the 25 percent of the stake she's retaining. That is estimated to be worth about $35.7 billion at current share prices.
¡ª MacKenzie Bezos (@mackenziebezos) April 4, 2019
Her ranking all depends on how much money MacKenzie gets however. Right now, the richest women in the world are Francoise Bettencourt Meyers worth $52.9 billion, Alice Walton at $45.4 billion, Jacqueline Mars at $25.9 billion, Yang Huiyan at $23.8 billion, and Susanne Klatten at $20.8 billion. Analysts estimate MacKenzie is likely to fall either in the third or fourth-richest spot once this deal is done.
Despite this, Jeff Bezos is expected to retain his top spot as the world's richest person, with an estimated net worth of about $110 billion. But had things gone differently, that wouldn't have been the case.
To all outside observers, the Jeff-MacKenzie split seems to be fairly amicable. If the opposite were true, Bezos was in for a rough ride. The Amazon founder started his company only after the two got married, and they didn't sign a prenup. That means in the community property state of Washington, MacKenzie is actually entitled to half of everything acquired during the marriage.
So if she wanted it, she could have had control of half of all Amazon properties and Jeff's money.
And she wouldn't have really been blamed for it either. Mackenzie was technically one of Amazon's first employees, reportedly at the time driving her husband around the US while he formulated a business plan.
Basically it seems, even after divorcing his wife, it seems Bezos was very, very lucky in love.
