Billionaire Scott donates 2 mansions

The homes given by Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife will be sold mainly to fund low-income housing.

Billionaire and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated two Beverly Hills mansions worth a combined $55 million to the nonprofit California Community Foundation, according to the foundation.

The organization said Scott, 52, donated the two single-family homes, which will be sold, with the majority of the money going to help low-income Los Angeles residents find affordable housing. The remaining money will go toward the foundation’s efforts to help immigrants integrate into the United States and Los Angeles, according to the nonprofit.

Last year, Scott donated $20 million to help the group establish an arts endowment.

California Community Foundation Chief Executive Antonia Hernández called the donation an “extraordinary philanthropic investment in Los Angeles.”

“Her singular commitment — here and across the country — to transformative philanthropy has already secured the long-term future of dozens of nonprofits,” Hernández said in a written statement. “With the California Community Foundation, her generosity will support organizations struggling to solve some of the most intractable issues facing our community. We are grateful for her partnership.”

The two single-family mansions sit on Alpine Drive in Beverly Hills. One is described as a four-bedroom, six-bathroom home and the other has seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms, according to the foundation.

Scott was previously married to Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos and the couple divorced in 2019. She owns a 4% stake in Amazon.com and in 2021 donated $2.7 billion to 286 organizations with her then-husband, Dan Jewett.

That included $30 million to Long Beach City College, $10 million to the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo and many others.

At the time, Scott wrote in a Medium blog post: “I want to de-emphasize privileged voices and cede focus to others, yet I know some media stories will focus on wealth.

“Putting large donors at the center of stories on social progress is a distortion of their role. We are attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change,” Scott said. “My team’s efforts are governed by a humbling belief that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands, and that the solutions are best designed and implemented by others.”