After her divorce from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 2019, MacKenzie Scott (51) can call herself one of the richest people in the world. She announced that she would donate more than half of her wealth to charities, but that is easier said than done, it turns out.
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The novelist, who was married to Bezos for 25 years, received about four percent of all Amazon shares at the time of the divorce. At the time, the package was worth approximately USD 38 billion (more than EUR 33 billion). Like Bill & Melinda Gates, she joined The Giving Pledge, a campaign that encourages the wealthiest Americans to donate most of their wealth to charities of their own choosing.
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In 11 months, MacKenzie Scott says he donated about $8.4 billion (more than 7.4 billion euros) to several hundred charities, including food banks, organizations that campaign against racism or climate change or campaign for LGBTI rights, education or health care.
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Despite this, she is getting richer due to the rapid rise in Amazon stocks. In the Bloomberg billionaire ranking, the benefactor is in 24th place with a wealth of USD 59.2 billion (more than EUR 52 billion). That is more than 20 billion dollars more than after her divorce. That wealth makes her the third richest woman in the world and number twelve of the richest on earth, after tycoons such as Microsoft’s Bill Gates, “Mister Tesla” Elon Musk and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, according to the American financial news agency.
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Perhaps the real problem with the philanthropy industry is that they are annoyed that Scott doesn’t knock on their door to donate
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middle class donor
MacKenzie Scott is giving away more money and doing it faster than anyone ever did before her, reported The Economist end of November. “But America’s champion philanthropist is operating like a middle-class donor: donating to a number of organizations and leaving it to them what happens with it,” wrote the British magazine. “MacKenzie’s fundamental priority is getting the money out the door,” said Benjamin Soskis of the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofit and Philanthropy, a US think tank that focuses on economic and social policy research “to open the mind.”
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Philanthropy insiders and experts question her approach and complain about a lack of transparency. Scott changes lives and communities by giving away a fortune she thinks she doesn’t deserve, without using the typical middlemen or donating to well-organized causes. Her biggest problem seems to be that her wealth is growing faster than she can give the money away,” the US news site wrote Politico last week. Food for thought: The recipients of Scott’s donations don’t seem to have a problem with her approach. Perhaps the real problem with the philanthropy industry is that they’re annoyed that Scott doesn’t knock on their door to donate.”
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