Divorce makes MacKenzie Bezos world’s fourth richest woman

MacKenzie Bezos will become the world’s fourth richest woman with a $50bn divorce settlement.

Jeff Bezos and soon to be ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos. Picture: AP.

MacKenzie Bezos will become one of the world’s richest women with a US$36 billion (AUD 50.6bn) settlement when she divorces Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

The agreement is the most expensive divorce settlement in history. It will see her keep 25 per cent of the couple’s Amazon stock, giving her a four per cent stake in the tech giant and him a 12 per cent stake.

It will make her the world’s fourth richest woman behind the $54bn fortune of L’Oreal SA heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the $44bn held by Alice Walton and the $37bn net worth of Jacqueline Badger Mars, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

But Ms Bezos said she was “happy” to give her soon-to-be ex-husband all of her interests in the Washington Post newspaper and the space exploration company Blue Origin as well as 75 per cent of their Amazon shares.

Mr Bezos will also retain voting power over her stake in Amazon. The deal will allow Mr Bezos to keep firm control over the company he founded in 1994 and built into one of the world’s richest.

The deal will still leave Mr Bezos as easily the world’s richest man, followed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose wealth has been diminished by his philanthropy.

Despite their divorce, which came amid lurid revelations about Mr Bezos’ extra-marital affair with 49-year-old Lauren Sanchez, both Mr and Ms Bezos tweeted conciliatory messages about their settlement. They had been married for 25 years and had four children together.

“Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support of each other and everyone who reached out to us in kindness, and looking forward to the next phase as co-parents and friends,” Ms Bezos tweeted. “Excited for my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next.’

Mr Bezos tweeted: “I’m grateful for her support and for her kindness in this process and am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents.

“In all our work together, MacKenzie’s abilities have been on full display. She has been an extraordinary partner, ally, and mother. She is resourceful and brilliant and loving, and as our futures unroll, I know I’ll always be learning from her.”

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— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) April 4, 2019

The Bezos marriage unravelled publicly in January this year when Mr Bezos was told that the National Enquirer magazine was about to reveal that he was having an affair with Ms Sanchez, a former host of the Fox show ”So You Think You Can Dance.”

Two days later Bezos tweeted that he and Ms Bezos were getting divorced.

The Enquirer published a 12 page spread on the Bezos affair, including saucy text messages between the two lovers, prompting the billionaire to direct a team of investigators to uncover how the magazine obtained his private messages to Ms Sanchez.

In a further twist, Mr Bezos later accused The Enquirer of extortion and blackmail by threatening to publish intimate pictures of him unless he agreed to state publicly that the magazine was not motivated by politics when it revealed his affair.

The Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc, is run by David Pecker who is close friends with Donald Trump and the magazine is staunchly pro-Trump. Mr Trump is hostile to Mr Bezos whom he blames for the Post’s critical coverage of his presidency.

“Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten,” Mr Bezos wrote of the Enquirer in an online post.

Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia