MacKenzie Scott
MacKenzie Scott is a prominent American philanthropist and novelist, recognized as one of the wealthiest women globally. Born on April 7, 1970, in San Francisco, she is the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Scott has a strong literary background, having studied at Princeton University under Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, and published her first novel in 2005. In addition to her literary pursuits, she has become a notable figure in philanthropy, pledging to donate at least half of her wealth to charitable causes.
Following her divorce from Bezos in 2019, Scott received a substantial financial settlement that allowed her to significantly increase her philanthropic efforts. She is a signatory of the Giving Pledge, committing to extensive charitable giving. Over the years, she has donated more than $17 billion to various organizations focusing on social justice, education, and economic equality, among other causes. Scott is recognized for her unique approach to philanthropy, often providing unrestricted funding to groups led by individuals who have firsthand experience with the issues they address. Her impact continues to be felt across diverse communities, as she prioritizes support for vulnerable populations and critical needs.
MacKenzie Scott
Novelist and philanthropist
- Born: April 7, 1970
- Place of Birth: San Francisco, California
Significance: One of the world’s top philanthropists, MacKenzie Scott is the third wealthiest woman in the world and the former wife of Jeff Bezos, with whom she founded Amazon.com.
Background
MacKenzie Scott Tuttle was born on April 7, 1970, in San Francisco, California, to Jason Baker Tuttle and Holiday Tuttle. Her father was a financial advisor, and her mother was a homemaker and philanthropist. The family was wealthy, with two homes in California: one in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights and another in rural Marion County. Scott always loved to write, completing her first book, a 142-page chapter book, at age six. However, the book was later destroyed in a flood, an event Scott credits to her learning early on to always back up her work. Her parents were endlessly supportive of her choices and never doubted her calling as a writer.
Scott attended Hotchkiss School, an elite private boarding school in Lakeville, Connecticut. While she was away in high school, her father and his investment firm came under investigation. In 1987, he declared bankruptcy and moved the family to Florida. Despite their new financial circumstances, Scott remained at Hotchkiss, graduating in 1988. She then attended Princeton University, where she studied with Toni Morrison, a Nobel Laureate in literature. During her senior year, she worked as a research assistant on Morrison’s 1992 novel Jazz, before graduating in 1992 with a degree in English. Morrison also connected Scott to her literary agent, Amanda Urban.
Amazon.com
After graduating from Princeton, Scott moved to New York City, where she took a job as a research associate at the New York hedge fund company D. E. Shaw to support herself while she wrote. She interviewed with Jeff Bezos who was then a vice-president at the firm. The pair soon started dating and, shortly after, became engaged. Scott was twenty-three and Bezos thirty at the time of their marriage in 1993. In 1994, they left New York for Seattle, Washington, to pursue Bezos’s idea of a company that sold books online. Scott described herself as being inspired by Bezos’s enthusiasm, though she lacked business experience, and she recalled driving the pair to Seattle as her husband wrote the business plan on his laptop. Scott was heavily involved in the company’s beginnings, working as the company’s first accountant, filling product orders, and negotiating freight contracts. In 1999, with the business steadily growing, Scott took time away from the business to continue writing.
Novelist
Scott’s literary ambition was realized in 2005 when her first novel, The Testing of Luther Albright, was published under the name MacKenzie Bezos. She has explained that the book took her ten years to write. About a civil engineer as he deals with his family falling apart, the novel was critically acclaimed, winning the 2006 American Book Award and earning a spot on the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year list. Sales, however, were sluggish. Some independent bookstores refused to carry the title because of the threat that Amazon.com presented to traditional bookstores. Scott published her next book, Traps, in 2013. Again receiving positive critical reviews, Traps follows reclusive actor Jessica Lessing as she, with the help of three very different women, travels to Las Vegas to confront her con man of a father. In 2023, Scott published a third novel, The Fifth Border State, addressing West Virginia's history in an accurate way, correcting previous minimization of the state's slavery and Civil War history.
Philanthropy
As Scott and Bezos’s wealth steadily grew, Scott also devoted her time to philanthropy, though the couple came under fire on occasion for not giving as much as they could considering their wealth. In 2018, they established the Day 1 Fund, a charitable trust supporting preschools and food and shelter relief in underserved communities, funded with a two-billion-dollar donation. The couple also established a scholarship fund for the children of undocumented immigrants and made political contributions.
In 2019, Scott and Bezos, by then the richest couple in the world worth an estimated $137 billion, divorced. Scott was awarded the largest marital settlement in history, receiving, among other assets, 4 percent of Amazon stock, valued at $38 billion at the time.
Scott wasted little time pledging her immense wealth to philanthropic causes. In May 2019, she signed the Giving Pledge, a non-binding promise to give at least half of her wealth to charities during her lifetime or in her will. The Giving Pledge, led by Microsoft cofounder Bill and Melinda Gates, is an effort to encourage global philanthropy, especially from tech founders and beneficiaries. In July 2020, Scott wrote a post for Medium in which she announced that she had given $1.7 billion to nonprofit organizations focused on social justice and climate change that assist underprivileged populations, as well as to colleges and universities. In December 2020, Scott posted again that she had donated an additional $4.15 billion in the previous four months, focused on the care of vulnerable populations impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic through not only support for critical relief such as food banks and emergency funds, but also in support of long-terms solutions to systemic racism and economic and social inequality. She noted that she worked with a team of advisors to select 384 organizations as beneficiaries from a field of 6,490 organizations. She has also made significant contributions to community development financial institutions in underserved communities. Between 2019 and 2022, her donations were reported at more than $14 billion across 1,600 charities.
Scott remained heavily involved in charitable work as the 2020s went on. By the start of 2023 she had donated a total of over $14 billion of her wealth to charity; by March 2024 this total had reached $17.2 billion and her donations had assisted over 1,500 organizations. The causes Scott supported included education, affordable housing, and disaster relief for incidents such as the deadly wildfires in Maui, Hawaii, in August 2023.
Impact
In 2021, Scott was the third wealthiest woman in the world. In June 2024 Forbes estimated her net worth to be at $32.9 billion. She is a world leader in individual philanthropic giving, donating nearly $6 billion of her wealth in 2020 alone. She has been praised by some for her giving style and use of data-driven research to make large, unrestricted gifts focused on underserved populations and critical needs. She has also been praised for focusing on giving help to organizations run by people who have lived experiences with the causes they are advocating for.
Personal Life
Scott has three sons and a daughter with Bezos. In March 2021, high school chemistry teacher Dan Jewett wrote a Giving Pledge letter in which he revealed that he and Scott had married. The couple later divorced, which was finalized in January 2023.
Bibliography
Bromwich, Jonah E., and Alexandra Alter. “Who Is MacKenzie Scott?” The New York Times, 12 Jan. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/01/12/style/jeff-bezos-mackenzie-divorce.html. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.
Clifford, Stephanie. “The Inside Story of MacKenzie Scott, the Mysterious 60-Billion Dollar Woman.” Marker, 6 Oct. 2020, marker.medium.com/the-inside-story-of-mackenzie-scott-the-mysterious-60-billion-dollar-woman-21952a3dc811. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.
Dodds, Margi Murphy, and Laurence Dodds. “MacKenzie Scott: How Jeff Bezos’ Ex-Wife Is Spending Her $53bn Fortune.” The Telegraph, 22 Mar. 2021, www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2021/03/22/mackenzie-scott-jeff-bezos-billionaire-ex-wife-will-spend-fortune/. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.
Emmrich, Stuart. “7 Things to Know About MacKenzie Scott, the Woman Who Has Donated $6 Billion in 2020.” Vogue, 21 Dec. 2020, www.vogue.com/article/7-things-to-know-about-philanthropist-mackenzie-scott. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.
Johnson, Rebecca. “MacKenzie Bezos: Writer, Mother of Four, and High-Profile Wife.” Vogue, 20 Feb. 2013, www.vogue.com/article/a-novel-perspective-mackenzie-bezos. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.
Scott, MacKenzie. “116 Organizations Driving Change.” Medium, 28 July 2020, mackenzie- mackenzie-scott.medium.com/116-organizations-driving-change-67354c6d733d. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.
Wamsley, Laurel. “MacKenzie Scott Has Donated More Than $4 Billion in Last 4 Months.” NPR, 16 Dec. 2020, www.npr.org/2020/12/16/947189767/mackenzie-scott-has-donated-more-than-4-billion-in-last-4-months. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.