Former Spouse of Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos
$10.6 Billion Donated This Year, $38.3 Billion in Total Donations
Mackenzie Scott, who has earned the title "Queen of Giving" for her outstanding philanthropic activities among billionaires, announced that she has donated $7.2 billion (approximately 10.6 trillion won) this year alone.
According to the New York Times on December 9 (local time), Scott revealed on her blog that she donated about $7.2 billion this year, bringing her total cumulative donations to over $26 billion (approximately 38.3 trillion won).
Scott, a novelist and the former spouse of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has been making large-scale donations since her divorce from Bezos in 2019. Considering that her total assets are estimated at about $40 billion (approximately 58.8 trillion won), she has given back a significant portion of her wealth to society.
Scott typically discloses her donation status once or twice a year through her blog. She has criticized media coverage that focuses solely on the act of giving while neglecting the activities of beneficiary organizations. This time, she quietly updated the fourth paragraph of a blog post she published in mid-October to add the new donation amount.
She wrote, "This dollar total is likely to be reported in the news," but emphasized, "Yet no dollar amount comes close to the personal acts of care people have shown each other in our communities this year." She continued, "Who watched a child in the kitchen, who showed kindness to a stranger at the grocery store, who donated $50 to a local food shelter-these things are not news. But all of them matter," she stressed.
Scott has drawn attention as a pioneer of a new philanthropic culture through her "large-scale unrestricted giving." By providing substantial donations without specific conditions or restrictions on their use, she enables beneficiary organizations to utilize the funds autonomously.
Most of her donations have gone to organizations working for equity and racial justice. She has also made sizable contributions to refugee support groups, climate change organizations, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Because of her progressive stance, Scott has faced criticism from conservative circles, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Meanwhile, Scott's quiet approach to announcing her donations stands in contrast to the actions of Michael Dell, founder and CEO of U.S. manufacturer Dell Technologies, and his wife, who visited the White House on December 2 and publicly announced a $6.25 billion donation plan.
The Dells' donation will support the so-called "Trump Account" program from the Donald Trump administration, providing $250 each to 25 million children under the age of 10 born before last year, to be accessed when they turn 18. Some progressive groups have criticized this donation, arguing that it is being used to bolster President Trump's political image.
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