MacKenzie Scott, formerly known as MacKenzie Bezos, is an American author, philanthropist, and social crusader who lives in New York City with her family. MacKenzie Scott has a net worth of $57 billion as of the time of this writing.
Her net worth would be far larger if she hadn't contributed $6 billion to charity in only one year in 2020. She intends to give away the great bulk of her money throughout her lifetime, according to her wishes. More information on her philanthropic endeavors may be found later on this page.
On July 13, 2020, when Amazon's stock price surpassed $3,300 per share, MacKenzie became the world's richest woman for the first time in history. She didn't hang on to the title for the entire day.
By the conclusion of the trading day, Amazon's stock had fallen by several percentage points, allowing Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers to reclaim the top spot. In the following months and years, MacKenzie made massive charitable contributions, making it far more difficult for her to keep her status as the world's wealthiest woman to preserve her position.
She is most known for being the wife of Amazon entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, who she married in 1993 and divorced in 2019. Jeff and MacKenzie are the parents of four children between them. Jeff has been a billionaire for more than two decades, and he has held the title of world's richest person from the year 2018.
Early Life
MacKenzie Scott Tuttle was born in April 1970 in the Californian city of San Francisco. Marin County, where she grew up, is just across the Golden Gate Bridge. Her family also had a residence in the Pacific Heights section of San Francisco. Her father, Jason Baker Tuttle, was the owner and operator of a financial investment firm.
MacKenzie attended the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut, for her high school education. Her parents filed for bankruptcy during her junior year when her father became the target of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Her parents relocated to Florida, where her father sought, but failed, to launch a new financial profession from the ground up. In the end, her father was prevented from creating a new financial enterprise in his name. The family's prior extravagant spending was cited as a reason for the denial by the Florida judge.
Following high school, MacKenzie went on to Princeton University, where she majored in English literature. She received her bachelor's degree in 1992. In a creative writing workshop at Princeton, she had the opportunity to work with renowned novelist Toni Morrison. Morrison would later refer to MacKenzie as “one of the greatest pupils I've ever had,” and he would be right.
Meeting Jeff Bezos
After graduating from Princeton, MacKenzie relocated to New York intending to pursue a career as a writer of fiction. She took a job at the hedge firm D.E. Shaw to augment her income as she waited for her dream to come true. Shaw will be working as an administrative assistant.
When she served in this position, one of the persons she aided was Jeff Bezos, the company's Senior Vice President, and fellow Princeton alum. Their offices were connected by a common wall.
In the end, she was promoted to the position of research associate, reporting directly to Bezos.
Jeff and MacKenzie first met in 1992 and dated for only three months before deciding to get married the following year. They tied the knot in 1993. He was 29 and she was 23 years old.
Amazon
Jeff got obsessed with the “worldwide web,” which was only starting to take shape around the time of their marriage. After seeing the potential of an online “e-commerce” business, Jeff decided on an online bookstore since books don't go bad and can be purchased without having to try them on or even touch them before purchasing.
Jeff's motivation to achieve his goals was greatly aided by MacKenzie's encouragement. In 1994, they decided to leave their comfortable careers and homes in New York City and go to Seattle, where he could follow his internet aspirations.
The Volvo was driven by MacKenzie as they traveled across the United States, while Jeff sat in the passenger seat spitballing ideas and composing his e-commerce business plan on a laptop in front of him.
Jeff and MacKenzie came up with a list of dozens of things that may be offered online as a result of their brainstorming session. When Jeff couldn't find anything else to do, he turned to literature.
Cadabra was the name he first gave to his company. After some deliberation, he settled on the name Amazon, which is a tribute to the Amazon River in South America.
On July 5, 1994, Jeff Bezos and Jeff Bezos launched Amazon from their Seattle garage. Jeff was able to get off the ground thanks to a $300,000 angel investment from his parents. MacKenzie worked at Amazon as a bookkeeper and secretary for several years.
During this period, she also enrolled in fiction writing programs at the University of Washington on a part-time basis. It took another decade before MacKenzie was able to publish her first fictional work, “The Testing of Luther Albright,” which was published in 2000. According to reports, less than 2,000 copies of the book were sold. The year 2013 saw the publication of her second novel, which was named “Traps.”
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Becoming Billionaires
Amazon went public for the first time on May 15, 1997, through an initial public offering (IPO). Amazon's stock price concluded the first day of trade at $2 a share, after being adjusted backward for stock splits. A single share of Amazon is now worth more than $3,000 in today's market.
As a point of reference, 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 the company's initial public offering (IPO). Over the years, he has sold off significant amounts of shares to generate liquidity. Jeff's stock transactions have generated around $70 billion in liquid cash as of this writing. Before their divorce settlement, he possessed a 16.7 percent stake in Amazon.
Jeff became the first person to reach the billionaire level in June 1998. At the height of the dot-com bubble, he had a net worth of 10 billion dollars. After the bubble burst, his net worth fell to $2 billion, a significant decrease from its peak.
His net worth surpassed $50 billion for the first time in June of that year. It surpassed $100 billion for the first time in January of this year. It reached a new high of $150 billion in July 2018. His net worth has varied between $150 billion and $200 billion over the last few years.
Amazon shares temporarily crossed the $3,300 barrier on July 13, 2020, but only for a brief period. At any price above $3,255, MacKenzie's net worth would surpass that of Bill Gates, making her the richest woman on the planet. As a result, on July 13, 2020, MacKenzie Bezos officially became the world's richest woman for the first time in history.
MacKenzie Bezos Divorce Settlement
In a statement released on January 9, 2019, Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos announced that they were ending their 25-year marriage. Their wedding took place in 1993, one year before Jeff launched the corporation that would one day make him the wealthiest person on the globe, as we previously said.
Jeff had a net worth of $136 billion at the time of the news of their marriage's dissolution. According to all accounts, MacKenzie might have been entitled to half of Jeff's assets because they were all accumulated throughout their marriage. If this is accurate, MacKenzie might have received shares and other assets worth up to $70 billion, among other things.
Final Settlement
Jeff and MacKenzie formalized their divorce on April 4th, 2019 and MacKenzie received slightly under 20 million shares of Amazon stock, which is approximately 4% of the company's total shares.
They have valued a total of $35.6 billion at the time of transfer. About 60 million shares, or 75% of their previous ownership, were retained by Jeff. That MacKenzie allowed Jeff to keep all of her voting rights over her shares was a substantial compromise. It's as though she's getting all the benefits without any of the sways.
Richest Woman In The World
MacKenzie was the fifth-richest woman in the world as of the beginning of 2020. As of January 1st, 2020, these are the world's wealthiest women:
- #1: Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers – $62 billion (L'Oreal heiress)
- #2: Julia Flesher Koch – $60 billion (David Koch's widow – Koch oil)
- #3: Alice Walton – $53 billion (Walmart founder Sam Walton's daughter)
- #4: Jacqueline Mars – $42 billion (Mars candy)
- #5: MacKenzie Bezos – $37 billion
As it turned out, 2020 was a very lucky year for Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos.
After the globe ground to a standstill in reaction to the Coronavirus outbreak, Amazon shares skyrocketed. People around the world were primarily confined at home purchasing deliveries, watching Prime videos,s and talking madly to Alexa.
As Amazon's stock price grew from $1,900 on January 1st to nearly $3,000 six months later, Jeff and MacKenzie's net worths surged. MacKenzie's net worth reached $64 billion on July 10, 2020. On August 26 when AMZN crossed $3,440, MacKenzie's net worth hit $67 billion. Here's a list of the richest women in the world on that same day:
After the market closed on August 26, 2020, here's how the very same list stood up:
- #1: MacKenzie Bezos – $67 billion
- #2: Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers – $66 billion
- #3: Alice Walton – $56 billion
- #4: Julia Flesher Koch – $52 billion
- #5: Jacqueline Mars – $37 billion
Philanthropy
MacKenzie made two significant statements in a piece she published on the blogging site Medium on July 28, 2020: Her legal name change from MacKenzie Bezos to MacKenzie Scott was the first thing she announced.
When she was born, “Scott” wasn't her maiden surname; it was her maiden middle name, and it was passed down from one of her grandfathers. 116 charity received a total of $1.7 billion from MacKenzie. On December 15, 2020, MacKenzie stated that she had given $4.2 billion to 384 organizations, just a few months later. MacKenzie's declared goal is to:
For the bulk of my riches to be returned, “to give it back deliberately, get started as soon as possible and keep going until the safe is empty,”
In March of 2021, MacKenzie made public her second marriage to Dan Jewett, a high school science teacher. At Lakeside School, where Bill Gates and Paul Allen are alums, Dan is a teacher.
On her Giving Pledge website, she announced the happy news, noting that her new husband had also pledged his support to the cause. According to a statement issued by an Amazon spokesman, Jeff Bezos expressed his happiness and excitement for the couple, saying, “Dan is such a great guy.
According to MacKenzie's most recent author bio on Amazon, she and her husband Dan “live in Seattle with their four kids”
