Since MacKenzie Scott divorced billionaire Jeff Bezos in 2019, she’s more than proven that she doesn’t need a connection to him to make a big impact. In fact, it could be argued that Scott, who was married to Bezos for 25 years, has been making a much bigger splash post-split. While her public profile may not be as large as that of Bezos, who lost and regained his status as the richest man in the world, Scott is often in the news for giving away a stunning percentage of her fortune, which she got in her divorce settlement from her ex-husband. As of December 2024, for example, she’s parted with $19 billion of her initial $38 billion settlement, and it seems she has no plans of slowing down.
However, positioning herself as one of the most charitable people in history isn’t all Scott has been doing since she ditched Jeff. The mother-of-four has also spent some time cultivating romantic bonds. In 2021, she got married for the second time to Dan Jewett, a teacher at the school her children with Bezos attended. Unfortunately, Scott’s second chance at romance didn’t pan out like she hoped, as she divorced a second time less than two years into their marriage. However, it was a quick process that was finalized within four months of Scott’s filing in 2022, per People. As residents of Washington, they also opted to honor their separation contract, which, due to state laws, kept all of the nitty-gritty of their asset division and other legal entanglements away from the public’s prying eyes. Unlike Scott’s divorce settlement from Bezos, no one knows how much Jewett walked away from the marriage with, though even a trivial percentage of Scott’s wealth could have set him up for life.
Beyond philanthropy and love, Scott has also spent some of her time aggravating Elon Musk, which, in some circles, is also a notable use of one’s time.
MacKenzie Scott has become one of Elon Musk’s targets
Believe it or not, MacKenzie Scott has received tons of criticism about pumping billions and billions of unrestricted dollars into the non-profit sector, and no one has been more outspoken than fellow billionaire Elon Musk. Previously, the Tesla CEO took to the self-owned X, formerly known as Twitter, and accused Scott of ushering in the demise of Western civilization by the way she’s chosen to spend her money. “Super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse’ should filed be listed among ‘Reasons that Western Civilization died,'” he wrote in a post which he’s since taken down (via Business Insider). His gripe, according to the outlet, was due to her funneling cash into left-leaning organizations. He also believed that her charitable donations were a petty plot to get on Bezos’ nerves — which, if there was any merit to his case, she definitely got a two-for-one deal.
Although it would have been nice for Scott to respond directly to Musk, she decided to take the high road and pay him absolute dust. Since then, she’s been focused on trying to put a dent in her fortune (though at the rate at which it grows every year, that may be impossible). And though she rarely does press interviews these days, she’s been updating inquiring minds on her endless charitable donations via Yield Giving. Her latest post, as of write time, is dated December 2024.
In a post titled “Investing,” Scott announced that, in addition to the long list of non-profit orgs she’d contributed to, she was starting to allocate funds, through various investments, toward for-profit organizations that benefitted marginalized groups, including people of color and women. “The gratitude I feel to these non-profits, to these funds and companies, and to the people helping me give these assets away is similar. I’m inspired by all the ways people invest in each other,” she wrote in the post. Basically, Musk’s criticism fell on deaf ears.
