After gaining 400 million Amazon shares following her 2019 divorce from the company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has now slashed her stake in the $2 trillion tech giant by nearly half.
A regulatory filing with the SEC, filed Tuesday and dated September 30, shows that Scott now holds 81.1 million shares—down 58 million from a year earlier, as Bloomberg reported. That 42% reduction equates to nearly $12.6 billion at Tuesday’s closing share price.
The filing does not specify if the cutback in Amazon holdings is from sales of shares, donations or both. Yield Giving, the name of Scott’s philanthropic effort, did not respond to Coins2Day’s request comment.
Under the terms of their divorce, Bezos still exercises voting authority over her holdings and is required to disclose them annually. Now, the latest filing reflects how Scott’s wealth and approach to giving it away without strings attached has evolved.
With a $32 billion estimated net worth, Scott obtained most of her wealth after divorcing Bezos in 2019 and has pledged to give away the majority of her wealth. After ending up with about 4% of the tech giant, she’s given away $19 billion in gifts to more than 2,000 nonprofits over the past five years. Since their divorce, Amazon shares have more than doubled.
Scott is dedicated to giving her billions away to DEI and the Giving Pledge
Scott’s no stranger to philanthropy. The median gift size of the thousands of donations she’s made since her 2019 divorce is roughly $5 million—and many of her recent philanthropic efforts have been to DEI causes.
One of her most recent donations include a $42 million gift to 10,000 Degrees, a Bay Area nonprofit expanding college access for low-income and largely non-white students.
This was on top of her recent $70 million gift to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) through the non-profit UNCF. The program, launched in 2o21, aims to help HBCUs close a funding gap compared to white or elite institutions, aiming to provide long-term financial stability and a permanent revenue stream for minority schools.
Over the years, other diverse causes the billionaire has donated to range from a $84 million gift to Girl Scouts, $20 million to Vermont’s Champlain Housing Trust, $436 million to Habitat for Humanity, and $275 million to Planned Parenthood. She also previously gave UNCF $10 million in 2020.
Signing the Giving Pledge in 2020—a philanthropic initiative founded in 2010 by Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, and Warren Buffett—her donations have so far outpaced many of her peers. The median gift size of the thousands of donations she’s made since her 2019 divorce is roughly $5 million.
Despite the flurry of donations, Scott is still richer than when she separated from Bezos as her Amazon shares continue to climb.
