Mackenzie Bezos to give away £14billion
Novelist goes one better than Amazon founder and billionaire ex-husband – by joining charitable scheme
Mackenzie Bezos, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, yesterday announced she would give away half of the $35.6billion (£28billion) fortune awarded to her in their divorce. Her decision to join the Giving Pledge, a scheme that gets millionaires and billionaires to donate 50 per cent of their money to charitable causes, was widely applauded. Mr Bezos, the world’s richest man, has not adopted the pledge himself.
THIS year Mackenzie Bezos became one of the world’s richest women through divorce, getting $35.6 billion (£28 billion) of her husband Jeff ’s Amazon fortune. Yesterday, she announced half of it would be given away.
Her decision to join the Giving Pledge, a scheme that gets millionaires and billionaires to donate 50 per cent of their money to charitable causes, was widely hailed after being announced yesterday.
Yet it has also cast a new light on the decision by Mr Bezos, the world’s richest man, not to adopt the pledge himself.
He is the only one of America’s top five billionaires not on the list.
Ms Bezos, a 49-year-old novelist, explained her thinking in an open letter about the decision.
“We each come by the gifts we have to offer by an infinite series of influences and lucky breaks we can never fully understand,” she wrote.
“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.
“But I won’t wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”
Mr Bezos’s own fortune, estimated at around $114billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, comes from the online retailer he founded and of which he remains chief executive. The 55-year-old also owns The Washington Post.
The Bezoses announced their separation in January after the tabloid magazine National Enquirer prepared to reveal a relationship between Mr Bezos and another woman.
The statement announcing the end of a 25year marriage said the pair would remain “cherished friends”. A settlement a few months later suggested the split had been amicable.
Mr Bezos’s philanthropy came under scrutiny in 2017 when The New York Times approached him with a series of questions seeking more information about his little-known charitable contributions.
Shortly afterwards, Mr Bezos issued a call on Twitter for people to share their ideas for philanthropy, saying he was thinking about a strategy “that is the opposite of how I mostly spend my time – working on the long term”. He went on: “For philanthropy, I find I’m drawn to the other end of the spectrum: the right now. If you have any ideas, just reply to this tweet.” Last September, a year after asking for ideas, Mr Bezos launched a new fund, committing an initial $2billion to projects, including helping the homeless and setting up new preschools. The move meant the Bezoses donated more money than anyone else in 2018, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a group that tracks charitable gifts. Why Mr Bezos has not decided to sign up to the Giving Pledge, which sees people promise to give away half of their wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes either during their lifetime or in their will, is unclear. Both Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, who created the scheme, have signed up.
So too have entrepreneur Larry Ellison and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – the other two names along with Mr Bezos in a list of America’s five richest people. The British couple David and Claudia Harding, whose wealth comes from investment banking, also signed up this year.
Mr Bezos did share his former wife’s open letter about the decision yesterday, tweeting: “Mackenzie is going to be amazing and thoughtful and effective at philanthropy, and I’m proud of her. Her letter is so beautiful. Go get ’em Mackenzie.”
In the letter, Ms Bezos quotes from a passage from Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life which gives an insight into her thinking. “Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you,” one line reads. “You open your safe and find ashes.”
‘In addition to whatever assets life has nurtured in me, I have a disproportionate amount of money to share’