Jeff Bezos' ex-wife MacKenzie Scott explains why she keeps giving her money away
She pledged to donate at least half of her fortune
Featured Image Credit: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times/Toni Anne Barson/Getty Images
Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife has explained why she keeps giving her money away.
MacKenzie Scott divorced the billionaire in 2019 after he disclosed that he was having an affair with former news anchor Lauren Sánchez.
And Scott walked away with a huge settlement - in fact, it was the largest settlement ever to be awarded in a divorce.
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She received a whopping $38 billion in Amazon stocks, instantly making her the fourth wealthiest woman in the world.
So, nearly six years on from the split, what has Scott been spending her money on?
It turns out that she has been making some pretty sizable donations.
As reported by the New York Times: “They came like gifts from a Secret Santa, $20 million here, $40 million there, all to higher education, but not to the elite universities that usually hog all the attention.
“These donations went to colleges and universities that many people have never heard of, and that tended to serve regional, minority, and lower-income students.”
The president of Prairie View A&M University, Ruth Simmons, revealed that she was ‘stunned’ to learn that Scott was gifting the institution $50 million.
She explained that she had thought she’d misheard the figure and the caller had to repeat ‘five zero’.
It’s the biggest donation the university has ever received.
Writing for Medium, Scott explained that the pandemic inspired her to increase her charitable endeavors and in 2020 alone she gave away $6 billion.
She said: “This pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the lives of Americans already struggling.
“Economic losses and health outcomes alike have been worse for women, for people of color, and for people living in poverty. Meanwhile, it has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires.”
Scott also shared that she had been donating to ‘communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital’.
Donating her fortune to worthy causes was something that she had promised to do around the time of her divorce.
And just months after the settlement had been reached, Scott signed the Giving Pledge, which is a commitment to give away at least half of your wealth.
She’s in good company - the pledge is led by Bill and Melinda Gates and has been signed by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan as well as George Lucas and Michael Bloomberg.
In a letter, Scott said: “We each come by the gifts we have to offer by an infinite series of influences and lucky breaks we can never fully understand. In addition to whatever assets life has nurtured in me, I have a disproportionate amount of money to share.
“My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care.”