30 Mind-Blowing Facts About Mackenzie Scott You Probably Didn’t Know Before

MacKenzie Scott, world renowned as the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, is an American novelist and philanthropist. She is the founder and executive director of Bystander Revolution, an anti-bullying organization. She is known for her involvement in the shaping of Amazon, in the early days of the organization. She has been an activist by nature and is known to always support the oppressed. Here are some really interesting facts about her that you might have missed before:

 
1.  She is the third-wealthiest woman in the United States, and the 21st-wealthiest individual in the world, as of writing.
2.  Scott was named one of the World's Most Powerful Women by Forbes in the year 2021.
3.  She was also ranked as one of Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
4.  She gave away $5.8 billion in charitable gifts in the year 2020, which was one of the largest annual distributions by a private individual to working charities that year.
5.  In the year 2006, she won an American Book Award for Outstanding Literary Achievement for her 2005 debut novel, "The Testing of Luther Albright."
6.  MacKenzie Scott Tuttle was born on April 7, 1970, to Jason Baker Tuttle and Holiday Tuttle in San Francisco, California.
7.  Her father was a financial planner and her mother was a homemaker. They encouraged her in her passion for literature and gave her the best of education.
8.  She did her high school from Hotchkiss High School, Connecticut, from where she graduated in 1988.
9.  For her bachelor’s degree, she graduated with honors in English from Princeton University in 1992.
10.  During her time at Princeton, she studied under the Nobel Laureate in Literature Toni Morrison, and even worked as her research assistant for the 1992 novel “Jazz.”
11.  Morrison has often described Scott as “one of the best students,” she has “ever had” in her creative writing classes.
12.  She also reviewed Scott’s debut novel “The Testing of Luther Albright” as "a rarity: a sophisticated novel that breaks and swells the heart."
13.  Scott claimed in an interview that it took her 10 years to write her novel, as she was helping Jeff Bezos, in building Amazon and raising her children.
14.  She was one of the Amazon's first employees, and was heavily involved in Amazon's early days, working on the company's name, business plan, and accounts and shipping early orders.
15.  In fact, it was MacKenzie who negotiated the company’s first freight contract. However, with Amazon shaping up better, she preferred to focus on her family and literary career.
16.  She signed the Giving Pledge, a charitable-giving campaign in May 2019, to give away most of her wealth to charity over her lifetime or in her will.
17.  In June 2021, she, along with Melinda French Gates, launched the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge, a contest to promote gender equality, in an effort to expand women’s power and influence in the United States by 2030.
18.  She met Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, in the year 1992. She was working as his assistant at D. E. Shaw at that time.
19.  The duo dated for three months, and got married in 1993. They moved to Seattle, Washington, in the year 1994.
20.  The couple together has four children – three sons and one daughter. Their daughter is adopted from China.
21.  Bezos and Scott divorced in the year 2019, and their community property divorce, left her with $35.6 billion in Amazon stock. In fact, her divorce settlement of $38 billion is ranked as the largest in history.
22.  Following her divorce, she changed her name from MacKenzie Bezos to MacKenzie Scott, with the surname derived from her middle name.
23.  In her July 2020 post on Medium, she announced that she had donated over $1.7 billion to 116 non-profit organizations, with a focus on racial equality, LGBTQ+ equality, democracy, and climate change.
24.  It is also said that her gifts to HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions, tribal colleges and universities, surpass over $800 million in value.
25.  From July 2020 to December 2020, she donated $4.15 billion to 384 organizations, which aims to support people affected economically by the COVID-19 pandemic.
26.  In fact, according to a Forbes report, she has donated over $8.5 billion across 780 organizations, from July 2020 to July 2021.
27.  She contributed over $2.7 billion to around 286 organizations on June 15, 2021. She stated in an interview that she wanted her advisory team to give her wealth away faster as the United States struggled with the unprecedented impact of COVID-19.
28.  In February 2022, nine organizations reported to have received gifts from Scott totaling $264.5 million. In May 2022, The Big Brothers Big Sisters foundation reported a $122.6 million donation from Mackenzie Scott.
29.  She is now married to Dan Jewett, a high school chemistry teacher. Their marriage was revealed in Jewett’s Giving Pledge letter posted on March 6, 2021.
30.  She gifted $436 million to Habitat for Humanity and $275 million to Planned Parenthood, on March 23, 2022. Apart from organizations in US, she has also contributed a large sum to charitable organizations in Kenya, India, Brazil, Micronesia and Latin America.
31.  MacKenzie Scott Net Worth: $43.6 Billion