Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie Bezos, have officially finalized their divorce, three months after the couple announced that they were ending their 25-year-old marriage.
They each released statements on Twitter Thursday afternoon with a brief overview of how they would split the family assets. Because MacKenzie Bezos was married to Jeff Bezos before the founding of Amazon, she was entitled to up to 50 percent of Bezos’ $149 billion (as of today) business empire, according to family laws in Washington State, where they live.
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In MacKenzie Bezos’s statement, she said that she granted Jeff Bezos all of her interests in The Washington Post and Blue Origin, in addition to 75 percent of the Amazon stock they owned together. Jeff Bezos will get the voting power of all her remaining ownership.
In dollar terms, that means the former Mrs. Bezos will get $35.6 billion worth of Amazon stock, or a quarter of Jeff Bezos’ total net worth.
But, even after the cut, Jeff Bezos is still the wealthiest person in the world, leading the runner-up, Bill Gates, by about $25 billion, per Forbes‘ real-time ranking of the world’s richest people.
The couple owned 78.8 million Amazon shares together, or about 16 percent of the company.
“Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next,” MacKenzie Bezos said in the Twitter statement.
“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,” said Jeff Bezos.
https://twitter.com/mackenziebezos/status/1113851260040503296/
Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos, 55 and 48, respectively, announced their intent to divorce in January. Provided Jeff Bezos’ astronomical net worth and the “community property” law in his home state, the case was expected to be the most expensive separation in history.
Despite the unexpected media craze over Jeff Bezos’ romantic affair with former TV news anchor Lauren Sanchez in the ensuing months, the pair apparently worked things out smoothly, settling the case right on the 90-day mark of Washington State’s minimum time window for processing a divorce case.
