Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
World’s biggest divorce
£125bn Amazon boss announces split from his wife after 25 years
THE world’s richest man is set to go through the world’s richest divorce after he and his wife announced the end of their 25-year marriage.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and novelist Mackenzie Bezos revealed the split in a joint statement on Twitter yesterday.
The seemingly-amicable move will prompt the division of Bezos’s £125billion fortune which many argue is regularly boosted by the company’s tax avoidance.
Shares in Amazon, the world’s largest company by market value, dipped slightly following the news before recovering.
The couple said if they knew they would separate after 25 years, they “would do it again”.
Their statement said: “As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends.”
Bezos, who turns 55 on Saturday, founded Amazon as an online bookstore in 1994 from a garage in Seattle with his parents investing almost £200,000.
San Francisco-born Mackenzie, 48, was one of the first employees and an integral part of the company’s early days. Much of his wealth comes from the 16% of Amazon he owns.
Experts say the division of Bezos’ assets will likely be more complicated than most due to the complex nature of his wealth.
His fortune has ballooned in the last six years. In March 2014, he was estimated to be worth £25billion – but as Amazon grew so did his bank balance.
He owns the Washington Post, which has criticised Donald Trump, prompting the President to slam Amazon for not paying enough tax.
Bezos has also invested heavily in Airbnb, Uber and Google.
Despite the couple’s split, they will continue to pursue joint ventures. Their statement added: “We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other and deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married to each other.
“We’ve had such a great life together as a married couple, and we also see wonderful futures ahead, as parents, friends, partners in ventures and projects, and as individuals pursuing ventures and adventures. Though the labels might be different, we remain a family, and we remain cherished friends.”
Both graduated from Princeton but they did not meet at the university. Mackenzie studied English under famed US author Toni Morrison, who said she was “one of the best students I’ve ever had in my creative writing classes”.
They met in 1992 when Bezos interviewed Mackenzie as vice president of an investment management firm in New