MacKenzie Scott sees the $59.3 billion she’s accumulated through her ownership of about 4% of Amazon stock as “the product of a collective effort, and of social structures which present opportunities to some people, and obstacles to countless others.”
On Tuesday, a day before her ex-husband, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, was scheduled to testify in front of a congressional committee investigating whether the company built over the course of their marriage has too much power, Scott announced nearly $1.68 billion in donations to 116 nonprofits, including universities, community development groups and legal organizations. Her giving focuses on racial, gender and LGBTQ+ equity, economic mobility, functional democracy, global development, climate change and other purposes.
Last year, Scott took the Giving Pledge — a program begun a decade ago by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and investor Warren Buffett — in which the world’s wealthy promise to give away at least half of their wealth, though many have seen their holdings rise sharply. Scott’s total, as estimated Tuesday by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has increased by some $22.2 billion this year alone, ranking her 13th on the list. Bezos, who tops the list, is worth an estimated $178 billion, followed by Bill Gates, at $117 billion.
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