Bezos’s ex-wife sells £281m of Amazon shares

AMAZON founder Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife has cashed in £281million worth of the firm’s shares after pledging to give a large part of her fortune to charity.

MacKenzie Bezos, 49, has sold roughly 200,000 shares in the online shopping giant since being given a 4 per cent company stake in her divorce agreement last year, according to regulatory filings.

She still holds 19.5million shares worth about £27.4billion at yesterday’s prices.

It has not been disclosed what she intends to use the money for.

But the mother-of-four (pictured with Bezos), who is a novelist, has vowed to give at least half of it to good causes through The Giving Pledge, a campaign which has also been signed by leading figures such as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

‘There are lots of resources each of us can pull from our safes to share with others – time, attention, knowledge, patience, creativity, talent, effort, humour, compassion,’ she said in a statement last year.

‘In addition to whatever assets life has nurtured in me, I have a disproportionate amount of money to share.’

Her ex-husband, who is the richest man in the world with an estimated fortune of £88billion, has not signed the pledge. His wealth has gone towards his space rocket company Blue Origin, buying the Washington Post, cancer research and college scholarships for immigrant students.

But, in 2018, the pair set up the Bezos Day One Fund, which supports charities working with homeless people and preschools working in deprived areas.