Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife MacKenzie Scott donates her two $55m Beverly Hills mansions to charity
MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon and Blue Origin’s founder Jeff Bezos, has donated two of her Beverly Hills homes for a total of $55 million.
This is not the first time that the philanthropist has made headlines for donating some of the fortune she initially received from her 2019 divorce from the self-proclaimed astronaut. In December 2020, Scott revealed that she was the one behind numerous donations made to dozens of colleges and universities across the US, part of nearly $4.2 billion she had given to 384 organisations in the previous four months.
Then in June 2021, she did it again. Scott—one of the richest women in the world—gave away a further $2.7 billion to 286 organisations. At that point, she also published a blog post explaining her attitude towards charity, writing, “We are governed by a humbling belief that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands and that the solutions are best designed and implemented by others.”
And it certainly looks like Scott’s nowhere near done. The non-profit California Community Foundation (CCF) announced in August 2022 that the 52-year-old was giving up “two single-family residences valued at $55 million,” as first reported by the New York Post.
According to records, Scott transferred the two mansions—which she ended up getting in the divorce—to the CCF on 29 July. During her 25-year-long marriage with Bezos, the couple had bought the first residence in 2007 for $24.45 million, according to The Independent.
“The property sits on two acres, with the home being built in a Spanish style and powered by solar panels. The 12,000 square feet (1,115 square metres) residence includes seven bedrooms and as many bathrooms,” wrote the publication.
Then, on the same street as the first one, they bought a second house in 2017 for $12.9 million. “It measures 4,500 square feet (418 square metres) and was built in 1956. The two residences are situated along North Alpine Drive in Beverly Hills,” The Independent further described.
According to the New York Post, the CCF plans on selling the two residences, with 90 per cent of the money collected going to “affordable housing grant making.” The group’s immigrant integration programme will receive the remaining funds to “advance opportunities for the millions of immigrants from throughout the world who call Los Angeles County home.”
Scott’s current estimated net worth is $37 billion. She owns four per cent of Amazon after selling $8.5 billion in company stocks earlier in 2022. So far, she has donated more than $12 billion to charitable causes and groups—a number that will most definitely increase in the future.
Based in Seattle where she previously lived with Bezos in Medina, Scott is now thought to live in nearby Hunts Point where an unidentified buyer—widely believed to be Scott—bought a $37.5 million mansion in April 2019, some months after the highly publicised divorce was announced.
In March 2021, Scott married Seattle teacher Dan Jewett. “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,” Jewett wrote shortly after on the couple’s webpage for the Giving Pledge, a philanthropic organisation which encourages the world’s richest people to dedicate a majority of their wealth to charitable causes. “I look forward to the growth and learning I have ahead as a part of this undertaking with MacKenzie.”
