As one of the most talked-about figures, MacKenzie Scott has built a significant fortune. In this article, we dive deep into the assets and career highlights.
What is MacKenzie Scott's net worth?
Richest Woman in the World
For high school, MacKenzie attended the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut. During her junior year, her parents filed for bankruptcy after her father became the subject of a Securities and Exchange Commission probe. Her parents moved to Florida, where her father unsuccessfully attempted to jump-start a new financial career. Her father was eventually barred from launching a new financial firm. The Florida judge pointed to the family's previous lavish spending in the rejection.
As we stated previously, in their divorce settlement, MacKenzie received 4% of Amazon. At the time, that would have been around 19.6 million shares. Amazon performed a 20-for-1 stock split in June 2022, which would have multiplied her stake to roughly 392 million shares. MacKenzie has since sold substantial portions of her holdings. Over the course of 2025, MacKenzie reduced her Amazon holdings by 42%, trimming her stake by roughly 58 million shares. According to a filing, by September 2025, she owned 81 million shares of Amazon, compared with 139 million a year earlier. Her remaining stake at that point represented roughly 1.4% of the company. Jeff Bezos still exercises voting control over her holdings, as stipulated in their 2019 divorce agreement.
MacKenzie Scott, formerly known as MacKenzie Bezos, is an American novelist, philanthropist, and activist who has a net worth of $40 billion. Her fortune would be much higher, but in 2020 alone, she donated $6 billion to charity. She plans to donate the vast majority of her fortune during her lifetime and, as of this writing, has donated more than $20 billion to hundreds of charities around the world. More info on her philanthropy later in this article.
Divorce Settlement & Amazon Shares
MacKenzie Scott Tuttle was born on April 7, 1970, in San Francisco, California. She grew up in Marin County, the daughter of financial planner Jason Baker Tuttle and homemaker Holiday Robin Cuming. Scott developed an interest in storytelling as a child and reportedly wrote a 142-page novel when she was just six years old.
After high school, MacKenzie attended Princeton University, where she studied English. At Princeton, she studied under Nobel Prize–winning authorToni Morrison, who later described Scott as one of the best students she ever had. Morrison hired her as a research assistant on the novel "Jazz," a formative experience that cemented Scott's passion for literature and writing. She graduated from Princeton in 1992 with honors.
She first rose to prominence as the wife of Amazon founderJeff Bezos, having played an early role in the company's formation and growth. They were married from 1993 to 2019. Following their divorce, Scott received a 4% stake in Amazon worth over $35 billion, instantly making her one of the richest women in the world. Instead of building an empire around that wealth, she began dismantling it through unprecedented acts of philanthropy. In less than five years, Scott has donated billions to thousands of organizations, emphasizing racial equity, education, and poverty alleviation. Her approach—fast, unbureaucratic, and largely anonymous—has reshaped what it means to be a billionaire philanthropist. At the same time, she continues to write and publish fiction, maintaining her roots as a novelist and storyteller even as her giving redefines global generosity.
On July 13, 2020, with Amazon breaking $3,300 a share, MacKenzie was briefly the richest woman in the world for the first time. She actually did not hold on to the title for the full day. By the end of the trading day, Amazon had sunk several percentage points, giving the crown back toFrancoise Bettencourt-Meyers. Several months later, MacKenzie began donating billions of dollars to charity, which made it much more difficult for her to maintain her position as the richest woman in the world.
In summary, the total wealth of MacKenzie Scott reflects strategic moves.
Disclaimer: All net worth figures are estimates based on public data.