[News Inside] The Donation Angel Who Joined the Billionaire Ranks Overnight Through Divorce Alimony

Bezos Amazon CEO Ex-Wife Mackenzie Scott
Divorce Settlement Worth 40 Trillion Won... Rises to 16th Richest Globally
Donated 2 Trillion Won in July

▲Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, and MacKenzie Scott (right) [Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] The divorce of the century. The billionaire divorcee.

These are the epithets attached to Mackenzie Scott. She is commonly known as the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man and Amazon CEO, but this is only a part of the many facets she possesses.

Scott is considered a key contributor to Bezos founding Amazon. In the early 1990s, they first met at the same hedge fund company, with Bezos as the interviewer and Scott as the interviewee. They fell in love and got married in 1993. The following year, they established Amazon.com. A famous anecdote tells that while moving from New York to Seattle to start the company, Mackenzie drove while Bezos wrote the business plan on his laptop. Mackenzie handled book orders, shipping, and accounting in Amazon.com's early days.

She is also a mother who adopted and raised a Chinese girl. Bezos and Scott have three sons. However, the couple, who wanted a daughter more than anyone else, personally visited China in 2006 to adopt a girl through an introduction from an acquaintance. They adopted a girl from Hunan Province and have cherished her for over ten years. Especially, Bezos's affection for his daughter is notable; it is said he bought a small island so she could use it during her vacations. Bezos himself was raised between his biological mother and his Cuban immigrant stepfather, Miguel Mike Bezos, from the age of four, and is known to have a special bond with his adopted daughter. In the U.S., adopted children are not discriminated against in inheritance, so all four children are expected to inherit equally.

Scott also made headlines for her enormous divorce settlement. In January last year, she divorced Bezos and received 25% of Amazon's shares, equivalent to one-quarter of the company. At that time, this was valued at $35.6 billion (about 40 trillion KRW). According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of the 4th, Scott ranks as the world's 16th richest person with $60.1 billion (about 70 trillion KRW). She is the third richest woman globally, following Fran?oise Bettencourt Meyers, granddaughter of the L'Or?al founder (12th), and Alice Walton, daughter of the Walmart founder (15th).

Upon her divorce last year, Scott announced she would donate more than half of her fortune to the charitable organization 'Giving Pledge,' established in 2010 by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates. In July this year, Scott donated $1.7 billion (about 2 trillion KRW) from her divorce settlement. Through the online media 'Medium,' she revealed that she donated to 116 civic organizations working on racial equality, economic mobility, gender equality, public health, and environmental protection. In the article disclosing her donations, she used the name 'Mackenzie Scott,' which she adopted after her divorce, rather than 'Mackenzie Bezos.' This name is said to be derived from her grandfather's name.

Scott is currently active as a novelist as well.