Bezos to sign biggest prenup in history after first marriage cost $50 billion
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will have a prenup for his massive $200 billion fortune after coughing up $50 billion to his first wife.
Jeff Bezos’ and Lauren Sánchez’s engagement is a happy day for them — and for their lawyers.
Bezos is the richest groom in history, and his fiancee is no slouch either.
As Page Six exclusively reported, Bezos and Sánchez got engaged on his new $750 million superyacht, the Koru.
The stunning brunette was seen flashing a 20-carat engagement ring, estimated to cost $4 million (AUD), in Cannes, France.
While Bezos, 59, did not have a prenuptial agreement in place for his marriage to first wife MacKenzie Scott, costing him $50 billion, it’s safe to say that the Amazon founder will protect his multibillion-dollar assets as he embarks upon a second marriage with Sánchez, 53.
And Sánchez herself has plenty to protect, as a successful businesswoman in her own right, while the couple already has joint property assets and charities together.
So, what’s at stake financially for their pending nuptials?
Bezos huge net worth thanks to Amazon
Bezos’ net worth is estimated to be $200 billion by Forbes, making him the third richest person on the planet behind Bernard Arnault and Elon Musk.
He even retained his elite Top 3 status on the Forbes list despite his net worth dropping by $80 billion last year, due to a 38 per cent decline in Amazon’s stock price.
Although Amazon went public in 1997, Bezos is the biggest single shareholder (he owns nearly 10 per cent of the company), ahead of institutional investors like The Vanguard Group, BlackRock Fund Advisors and SSgA Funds Management.
Online bookstore to web’s biggest retailer
The Princeton graduate famously started Amazon out of his garage in Seattle in 1994 and turned it from a fledgling online bookstore to the biggest online retailer in the world.
With him from the start was MacKenzie Scott, whom the Albuquerque native wed in 1994. The couple were married for 25 years and had four children.
Amazon’s growth has moved the company into selling every kind of consumer item, having its own clothing ranges, and even experimenting with brick and mortar stores.
And in 2017 Amazon bought Whole Foods for $20 billion, giving it another high-profile brand.
During his 2019 divorce, Bezos transferred four per cent of Amazon stock to Scott, which was valued at $50 billion at the time.
The other notable transformation? The dweeby tech founder got ripped too.
Amazon has its own airline and runs swathes of the web
And while most consumers only know Amazon as an online retailer and streaming service, the breadth of the company is astonishing.
Globally, Amazon services 40 countries, including India, Japan, Egypt, Brazil, Australia, most of Europe and the UK.
Its Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the backbone of major websites including Airbnb, BMW, ESPN, Expedia, McDonald’s, Ticketmaster and Yelp, and hundreds of thousands of smaller ones.
The company has its own airline called, what else, Amazon Air, which helps deliver its packages across the world.
Launched in 2016, Amazon Air owns 11 planes and leases about 100 more, Wired reported, and opened a $2 billion hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in 2021.
1.5 million workers — including James Bond
Looking to boost its streaming services, in 2022, Amazon bought MGM’s full entertainment catalogue for $13 billion.
The acquisition includes 4000 film titles and 17,000 TV episodes, and spans epic blockbusters like the James Bond franchise, Rocky, The Silence of the Lambs and Legally Blonde.
In 2022, Amazon Prime Video also entered the sports broadcast market as the exclusive home of the NFL’s Thursday night game, earning 15 million viewers for its inaugural game.
Amazon has about 1.5 million employees globally, including warehouse and transportation workers.
Over the past year, it has cut 27,000 corporate and technology roles, amounting to an eight per cent reduction of its corporate workforce.
Amazon employees at its Seattle headquarters are organising a walkout on May 31, to protest these lay-offs and the company’s return-to-office mandate.
Personal owner of the capital’s hometown paper
Bezos bought the Washington Post from the Graham family in 2013 for $380 million.
It gives him a slice of journalistic history — under Katherine Graham’s ownership, the paper led the way on Watergate — and of social influence in Washington DC.
There has been speculation he could sell the paper, which is reported to currently be loss-making, but so far he has not moved to publicly dispose of it.
He also made moves to buy the Washington Commanders NFL franchise but shelved it in February when his takeover attempt was sidelined by its then-owner, the controversial Dan Snyder.
Sánchez has her own multimillion-dollar business
In 2016, Sánchez parlayed her love of flying helicopters and TV journalism into Black Ops Aviation, which makes aerial videos.
Being around aviation is in her blood; Sánchez’s father, Ray, worked as an aeroplane mechanic and flight instructor. Clients have included ABC, Discovery Canada, Sony, Netflix, Extra and Blue Origin.
Supposedly sparks flew when Bezos hired Sánchez, whom he had met two years earlier, to film footage in 2018.
They bonded over cozy helicopter rides, which helped the billionaire get over his fear of flying.
$750 million property portfolio
Bezos’ real estate portfolio is worth more than $750 million, making him the country’s 25th-largest landowner, according to the Land Report.
Undoubtedly, the trophy property is the 10-acre mansion in Beverly Hills, California, which Bezos bought from David Geffen for $250 million in 2020.
At the time, it was the most expensive real estate transaction in Los Angeles, only eclipsed by venture capital entrepreneur Marc Andreessen’s $270 million seven-acre Malibu compound in 2021, and more recently, Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s $305 million oceanfront estate in Malibu.
Known as the Jack Warner Estate because the original brick house was built for Harry Warner, the former president of Warner Bros. Studios, today the compound boasts eight bedrooms, 10 bathrooms estate, a koi pond, European garden, lagoon-like pool and spa, waterfalls, tennis court and tree-lined cobblestone driveway.
In Beverly Hills, the Blue Origin founder also owns two mansions next door to each other on North Alpine Drive. One is a Spanish-style seven-bedroom manse that he bought in 2007 for $37 million.
He acquired the neighbouring estate in 2017 for $19 million, adding another half-acre to his existing property.
In Manhattan, Bezos has taken over the top five floors of 212 Fifth Ave, directly facing Madison Square Park, dropping $150 million to form a mega penthouse condo in the 24-story building.
It has not gone unnoticed: protesters picketed it in 2020.
Bezos also has four apartments in the Art Deco Century at 25 Central Park West. In 1999, he bought three units from then Sony Music head Tommy Mottola for $12 million.
A few years later, in 2012, he paid $8 million for an adjacent unit from Eve Preminger, filmmaker Otto Preminger’s niece.
When Bezos visits the Washington Post office, he stays at the former Textile Museum, a 27,000-square-foot property he snapped up for $35 million in 2016.
Located in DC’s upscale Kalorama neighbourhood, the Georgian-style residence features 10 bedrooms, eight full bathrooms, six powder rooms, 11 fireplaces and a private garden.
And just in case that wasn’t enough, in 2020, he bought a 4,800-square-foot home across the street. The “modest” four-bedroom home features a country-style kitchen, five full bathrooms, two powder rooms, carved marble fireplaces, a 700-bottle wine cellar and roof deck.
Probably his most sentimental residence is in Medina, Seattle, which he bought in 1998, four years after he founded Amazon, and where he raised his family. Bezos paid $15 million for the 5.3-acre waterfront property.
In 2010, he reportedly renovated it for $43 million and bought the next door five-bedroom Tudor-style home for $75 million, giving him 310 feet of Lake Washington shoreline. Today, the compound is said to be worth over $180 million.
And then there’s Corn Ranch in west Texas, a 30,000-acre property that serves as Blue Origin’s base. In 2004, Bezos reportedly bought the land, including a four-bedroom stucco house, from lawyer Ronald Stasny for an undisclosed amount.
Sánchez has her own $9.5 million home
Sánchez herself brings a major slice of property in Washington, close to Seattle, to the marriage.
Her ex-husband, top talent agent Patrick Whitesell, transferred their Washington estate to her in full following the completion of their divorce.
The former couple had purchased the sprawling 7000-square-foot Mercer Island home in 2017 for $9.5 million — one year before Sánchez, 53, had entered into an affair with Bezos.
Specifically, the residence was transferred to Sánchez in May 2020 after their divorce finalised in October 2019, records show.
Their own Hawaii hideaway and $750 million superyacht
However, in terms of a prenup, their real estate is already entangled.
In 2021, Bezos and Sánchez purchased a 14-acre beachfront home in Hawaii for $120 million. Situated on the La Perouse Bay in Maui, the isolated property is a tropical oasis, flanked by state parkland and rocky lava fields.
Bezos just took his $750 million, 417-foot superyacht, Koru, for a spin along the Mediterranean. The world’s tallest sailing yacht features three masts, two pools, a cinema, meeting spaces, lounges and many more amenities. Koru means “new beginnings” in Maori.
However, it is missing one thing, a helipad (Koru was commissioned in 2018 before he met the helicopter-savvy Sánchez).
So, the billionaire ordered a 279-foot support vessel called Abeona. Worth $115 million, it’s believed to be the largest support vessel in the world, and has a helipad, helicopter hangar, water toys and can carry up to 45 passengers and crew. There is no submarine (yet).
As befits his tycoon status, Bezos owns two Gulfstream G650ER jets. These are the fastest and longest-range private aircraft on the market. Each jet starts at $107 million, not including customisations.
Equipped with two Rolls-Royce BR725 engines, the twin-engine G650ER can travel 7500 nautical miles, reaching heights of 51,000 feet.
Through Black Ops, Sánchez herself has two helicopters (a BELL 429 and AS350) and a single-engine aircraft, the Cirrus SR22.
A space program sending her skyward
Blue Origin was created by Bezos in 2000 as a private aerospace company with a “vision of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of earth”.
While he personally funded the company for many years, recently it has become profitable with its cargo payloads and space tourism flights.
This month, NASA selected Blue Origin as the second provider to develop its lunar lander system for the agency’s Artemis V mission, which includes a $5.2 billion contract.
Bezos himself travelled to space on Blue Origin’s maiden voyage on July 20, 2021. And the company has announced that it will launch Sanchez and a crew of women into space in early 2024. This will be the first ever all-Female crew in space.
Personal charities giving out billions
Bezos pledged to give away most of his net worth in his lifetime. Just last year, he distributed more than $1 billion to the Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, as well as awarding 40 grants totalling $188 million to combat homelessness.
Sánchez is involved too, as the co-chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, which focuses on reducing more on environmental issues, like reducing the planet’s carbon footprint.
The couple also honoured Dolly Parton with the Courage & Civility Award, which came with a $150 million grant for the singer to use towards her philanthropic efforts. A similar grant went to humanitarian chef José Andrés, just before Bezos went into space.
This article was originally published by the New York Post and reproduced with permission
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