MacKenzie and Jeff Bezos reach record-breaking divorce settlement

Bonnie Christian5 April 2019

The world’s richest man, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, and his wife MacKenzie have agreed a record-breaking divorce settlement worth at least $35bn (£27bn).

Bezos will retain all voting rights and 75 percent of the couple’s $143 billion stake in the world’s biggest online retailer.

"Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff," Ms Bezos said on Twitter, in the first and only tweet from an account that was created this month.

Bezos re-tweeted her statement and added in a separate post that he was grateful "for her support and for her kindness in this process."

The settlement dwarfs a previous $3.8bn record set by art dealer Alec Wildenstein and his wife Jocelyn.

Ms Bezos said that she will also give up her interests in the Washington Post, which her husband bought in 2013, and the rocket company Blue Origin he founded in 2000.

Some investors had worried about how the split could affect Bezos' influence over Amazon since the world's richest couple announced the impending divorce in January.

Bezos, 55, is seen as essential to Amazon's meteoric growth and stock price rise since he founded the company in 1994.

Amazon last year generated sales of $232.8 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

He has credited his wife, 48, for her support when he uprooted the young couple to Seattle from New York to launch Amazon, which began as an online bookshop.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos.
REUTERS

Ms Bezos' stake in Amazon, valued at roughly $36 billion, is worth more than the market values of nearly 70 percent of the components of the S&P 500. That includes companies like eBay Inc, Allstate Corp and Twitter Inc.

The settlement also suggests that Amazon will be spared the kind of boardroom battle that has plagued other companies whose owners are dealing with family rifts, even though the divorce had jolted the once private Bezos couple into the public spotlight.

Mr Bezos is reportedly in a relationship with former Fox TV host Lauren Sánchez.

After he and his wife announced in January that they would part, a US tabloid magazine published details, including private messages, of an extramarital affair with Ms Sánchez.

Mr Bezos has accused the publisher of the magazine, American Media Incorporated, of blackmail. The publisher denies the claim.

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