Jeff Bezos ex-wife Mackenzie Scott gives 2.7 billion dollars to black education and more
Mackenzie Scott, one of the richest women in the world and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has made headlines once again. The billionaire philanthropist and novelist announced on Tuesday 15 June that she had given away a further $2.7 billion to 286 organisations. This is the third round of announcements made by Scott regarding her philanthropy—in 2020, she made two similar surprise announcements and donated around $6 billion to a number of causes, including COVID-19 relief, gender equity, historically black educational institutions, among many more.
Much of Scott’s wealth comes from her 2019 divorce from Bezos, who still remains the world’s richest man. If you missed the news about Bezos flying to space last week, and how you can join him, you can catch up on all you need to know here. Scott still owns 4 per cent shares of multi-national gigantic corporation Amazon, having helped Bezos start the company in the mid-90s. Despite the mammoth size of these donations, she’s still far from being out of pocket. According to Forbes, Scott scores a respectable 22nd richest individual in the world—not bad out of a figure of around 7.6 billion, right?
Mackenzie Scott’s statement
In a recent blog post released on 15 June 2021, Scott said she was keen to redistribute her wealth, having worked with a team of researchers, as well as her new husband, on who to donate to. In the statement, she said, “In this effort, 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.”
Scott’s new husband, Dan Jewett said in a letter, “In a stroke of happy coincidence, 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.”
