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- MacKenzie Scott has given away over $8 billion since divorcing Jeff Bezos.
- She recently gave $2.74 billion to charity, but she's still worth around $60 billion.
- Scott owns a 4% stake in Amazon, whose share price has continued to skyrocket during the pandemic.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
MacKenzie Scott has given away over $8 billion in the last year, but it hasn't made much of a dent in her net worth – in fact, her fortune keeps rising.
Scott, a philanthropist and the ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, announced on Tuesday that she had given away $2.74 billion to 286 organizations. The donations were given in "categories and communities that have historically been underfunded and overlooked," Scott said in a blog post.
The latest round of donations brings Scott's total to about $8.5 billion. In July 2020, she revealed that she had donated $1.7 billion to 116 organizations since her divorce from Bezos in 2019; last December, she announced another $4 billion in donations to help those who were affected economically during the pandemic, including food banks and relief funds.
Despite the billions Scott has given away throughout the last two years, she remains one of the richest people in the world with a net worth of around $60 billion – since June 2020, Scott's fortune has increased by $1.31 billion overall, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.
Scott and Bezos finalized their divorce in July 2019. The high-profile split left Scott with a 4% stake in Amazon and instantly made her one of the richest women alive.
Prior to the divorce, Scott announced that she had signed the Giving Pledge, a committement created by Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Melinda French Gates that asks the world's wealthiest people to pledge to give the majority of their fortune to charity. Scott revealed earlier this year that she had married Dan Jewett, a former Seattle chemistry teacher, and added him to the pledge.
Bezos has not signed onto the Giving Pledge, but his $10 billion donation to help fight climate change was the single-largest charitable gift in 2020.
Amazon shares climbed throughout 2020 as demand surged amid the pandemic. The company added hundreds of thousands of additional jobs at its fulfillment centers over the last year and opened new warehouses throughout North America.
The company currently has a market value of over $1.7 trillion, and sales have continued to soar in 2021: Amazon reported $108.52 billion in revenue in the first quarter, a 44% increase year-over-year.