Jeff Bezos and wife getting divorced after 25 years of marriage
Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, are filing for divorce, the couple announced today.
The Amazon founder and his wife announced their split after 25 years of marriage in a post on social media.
“We want to make people aware of a development in our lives. As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends,” the couple wrote.
“If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again. We’ve had such a great life together as a married couple, and we also see wonderful futures ahead, as parents, friends, partners in ventures and projects, and as individuals pursuing ventures and adventures.”
The couple — who first met at an investment firm where they both worked in Washington, D.C., and have four children together — married in 1993.
The year after they married, the couple moved to Seattle and founded Amazon. The business, named after the world’s largest river, began out of the couple’s garage as a website that sold books. MacKenzie worked as an accountant for the web giant when it was founded.
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MacKenzie — who was Toni Morrison’s assistant in college — is a novelist and has authored books including “Traps” and “The Testing of Luther Albright: A Novel.”
The couple founded a $2 billion fund to help homeless families and create preschools, called the Day One Fund, last year.
As Amazon grew, Jeff Bezos became the world’s richest person with a net worth of $137 billion, according to Bloomberg. The divorce is poised to knock Bezos out of the top spot — and given the couple’s shared wealth and length of marriage, could potentially lead to the biggest divorce settlement the world has seen.