# Mackenzie Scott Donates $1.7bn Since Amazon Boss Divorce



## nysister (Jul 29, 2020)

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53574954


MacKenzie Scott with ex-husband Jeff Bezos prior to their split

MacKenzie Scott, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos's ex-wife, says that she has given $1.7bn (£1.3bn) to charity to date.

She has made donations to historically black US colleges, climate change groups and health organisations.

Ms Scott posted about the gifts on social media, also saying that she has changed her surname from Bezos.

She is the second-richest woman in the world, with a fortune of more than $62bn, according to Forbes.

She and Mr Bezos divorced last year.

The novelist, who married Mr Bezos a year before he founded Amazon and was one of the firm's first employees, received a 4% stake after the split.

Shortly after announcing the divorce, Ms Scott signed the Giving Pledge, joining a campaign founded by billionaire investor Warren Buffett and ex-Microsoft boss Bill Gates and his wife Melinda. It commits the wealthy to give away the majority of their fortunes to charity.

Ms Scott said she had "watched the first half of 2020 with a mixture of heartbreak and horror" and was providing an update on the donations to draw attention to the causes during the coronavirus pandemic.

"My own reflection after recent events revealed a dividend of privilege I'd been overlooking: the attention I can call to organizations and leaders driving change," she wrote in a blog post on Medium .

*Tech hearing*
Ms Scott's announcement comes the day before Mr Bezos is scheduled to testify before US lawmakers in Washington. The hearing is part of a wider investigation into the power held by tech giants, including Amazon, Google and Facebook.

Amazon in particular has been under fire in recent months, including from its own staff, over its environmental record and coronavirus safety measures. The online giant has faced calls to be broken up, including from Tesla boss Elon Musk .

Mr Bezos, the richest man in the world, has also been subject to personal criticism for not giving away more of his wealth.

In 2018, he established a charitable fund with a starting pledge of $2bn . This year, he committed $10bn to fight climate change and $100m to hunger relief fund, Feeding America.


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He has not joined the Giving Pledge. As well as Ms Scott, other signatories include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan, Elon Musk and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and wife Pam.

Ms Scott said she had given more than $586m to racial justice organisations and $399.5m to groups aimed at advancing economic mobility. Other causes included gender equality, global development and LGBTQ equality.

The list of organisations includes those linked to former US presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush, the labour advocacy group One Fair Wage, and other non-profits such as Black Girls Who Code.

The $20m gift to Tuskegee University, a historically black college, is the largest in the school's history, president Lily McNair said.

_





"There's no question in my mind that anyone's personal wealth is the product of a collective effort, and of social structures which present opportunities to some people, and obstacles to countless others," Ms Scott wrote in a blog post on Medium.

The groups "offer an opportunity to invest our good fortune in change, no matter what form our good fortune has taken", she added.

Ms Scott's approach differs from that of many other high-profile billionaires, said Brian Mittendorf, a professor at Ohio State University, who researches charity finances.

He said announcements are often built up in advance, with donors opting to create new organisations to distribute funds, which can make it more difficult to see how the money is being put to use.

"If the goal of doing this was to generate publicity, you wouldn't have done it the way she did," he said. "If the goal was to generate impact... this looks like a pretty good way of doing it."

The donations come at a time of need as many charities are seeing a spike in demand due to the pandemic as gifts from smaller donors are declining, Prof. Mittendorf said.

The list of recipients suggests Ms Scott is trying to address root causes of inequality and racial injustice - priorities that are "more typical" of female than male donors, said Una Osili, a professor of economics and philanthropic studies at Indiana University's Lily School of Philanthropy.

The effort to promote a diverse group of organisations - both big and small, led by people of colour and women, also stands out, she said.

*More on this story*_


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## Shimmie (Jul 29, 2020)

She don't need all dat' money ...


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## awhyley (Jul 30, 2020)

I see that she went back to her maiden name fairly quickly.  
Good to see that she's putting Bezo's money to good use, (esp, for us).


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## Kalia1 (Aug 2, 2020)

The first day I heard of her doing this I said she’s making a BOLD statement and wondered during their married life was she freely able to give? Or is she doing so post divorce as a form protest? 

I think she’s also semi-exposing Bezos as being greedy and not a giver. I wonder why he hasn’t entered into the pledge with all the others.


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## nysister (Aug 7, 2020)

Kalia1 said:


> The first day I heard of her doing this I said she’s making a BOLD statement and wondered during their married life was she freely able to give? Or is she doing so post divorce as a form protest?
> 
> I think she’s also semi-exposing Bezos as being greedy and not a giver. I wonder why he hasn’t entered into the pledge with all the others.



Because he is disgustingly greedy. Amazon even steps on the sellers that have made them.

Bezos and his abusive to employees company needs a challenger. Apparently Walmart was to slow to get the memo, so it needs to be a surprise, from right out of the gate.

Jeff Bezos is clever, but greedy, which is his downfall.

Elon Musk is actually stupid, but smart enough to know that AI in a few years, will see him and his 'kind', as the enemy, which is why he's so afraid of it.

But I digress...


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## nichelle02 (Aug 7, 2020)

I love what she did. And I love it because of the way she did it. She picked the charities and organizations and simply gave them a truckload of cash. There are no strings. Just bam, here you go. The amount of money she and her ex-husband have is ridiculous when the wealth gap is so so so so so very large. Amazon has 'cleaned up' during this pandemic. And they were already massive. It's too much. By Friday of the week she made the donation she had made all of it back and more. She had more money after she gave part of it away. It's less than 3% of her worth. I cut back on Amazon purchases before the pandemic started. As someone said it's not that they want to be dominant in the market, they want to *BE* the market. This podcast on Amazon breaks it down: 
The span of control is too much. At this link is a list of all of the companies owned by Amazon: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/articl...l-the-businesses-you-never-knew-were-owned-by

On multiple occasions I would see a company, think they had a great idea and then see they were bought by Amazon. Amazon's web services has customers in 190 countries and dominates industries as well as the US government. All of this is just to say the amount of money that has gone to the very, very, very few is harmful to our social structure. Bezos' net worth is nearing $200 billion.

Give it away. Give more of it away to good causes.


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## weaveadiva (Jun 15, 2021)




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## larry3344 (Jun 15, 2021)

well, that’s the beauty and curse of being married to an ambitious man.


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## weaveadiva (Jun 15, 2021)




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## nichelle02 (Jun 15, 2021)

From one extreme to the other... While so much wealth goes to so few, over HALF of all stores being opened in the US this year belong to 3 companies. Those 3 companies? Dollar General, Family Dollar and Dollar Tree. The wealth gap in the US is ridiculous and continues to get wider and wider.


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## ItsMeLilLucky (Jun 15, 2021)

This is just mind boggling. This lady is just giving away billions of dollars. BILLIONS. Like


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## sunshinebeautiful (Jun 18, 2021)

ItsMeLilLucky said:


> This is just mind boggling. This lady is just giving away billions of dollars. BILLIONS. Like



The college I worked for received a surprise donation of $30 million.


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## weaveadiva (Oct 20, 2022)




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## Black Ambrosia (Oct 20, 2022)

I'm not hating on the Girl Scouts but $84.5 million??? Come on.


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## Seattle Slew (Oct 22, 2022)

The schools could really use that money. Especially since Bezos did not pay his fair share of taxes in this area. WA allows this (AMZ, Boeing, Microsoft) bc they bring big business n commerce to the Puget Sound area. It’s not fair to the kids. She should donate billions to the WA state to distribute to all districts.


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## chocolat79 (Oct 27, 2022)

She's one of my favorite people that 
I don't know.  She's see definitely my favorite wealthy person.


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## Black Ambrosia (Oct 27, 2022)

I volunteer for a cancer foundation. They could use that money to fund human trials and save lives.


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