MacKenzie Bezos, the former wife of billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has trashed her married name and is donating a huge amount of money to groups promoting racial and gender equity, public health and economic parity. According to reports, Jeff Bezos' former wife revealed through a blog post that she has donated $1.67 billion for social causes to date and added that she has formally changed her name from Mackenzie Bezos to MacKenzie Scott.
"Following up on the commitment I made last year to give away the majority of my wealth in my lifetime," she tweeted, adding that her Medium account is under her new last name which has been changed back to her middle name taken from her grandfather Scott.
In her blog titled "116 Organizations Driving Change" MacKenzie said that there's no query in her 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. Scott signed on to the Giving Pledge initiative launched by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates last year and since then, she has donated to more than 100 nonprofits, which she revealed in her blog post on the website Medium.
She has donated to nine categories of charitable causes at various nonprofit organizations that include racial equity, gender equity, economic mobility, LGBTQ+ equity, functional democracy, empathy and bridging divides, public health, global development and climate change.
Donations made by MacKenzie Scott:
Racial Equity: $ 586,700,000
Economic Mobility: $ 399,500,000
Gender Equity: $ 133,000,000
LGBTQ+ Equity: $ 46,000,000
Functional Democracy: $ 72,000,000
Empathy & Bridging Divides: $ 55,000,000
Public Health: $ 128,300,000
Global Development: $ 130,000,000
Climate Change: $ 125,000,000
MacKenzie added: "I'm posting an update today because my own reflection after recent events revealed a dividend of privilege I'd been overlooking: the attention I can call to organizations and leaders driving change."
MacKenzie Bezos and Jeff Bezos Divorce
MacKenzie, an American novelist and an early employee at Amazon, was married to Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos from 1993 to 2019. Reportedly, the real reason behind the divorce of MacKenzie and her husband Bezos was the latter's alleged affair with his wife's friend and former Fox LA TV anchor Lauren Sanchez, the wife of Patrick Whitesell. However, Bezos has given credit to MacKenzie for her support during the launch of Amazon, which grew into one of the world's largest internet retailers.
The author of The Testing of Luther Albright became the third-wealthiest woman in the world after her divorce settlement with Bezos and is now the richest woman in America. Her net worth is pegged at $62.3 billion. After her divorce, MacKenzie walked away with $36 billion, which was 25 percent of the worth of Jeff Bezos' shares in Amazon at that time
