Jeff Bezos's wife gives him 75% of their Amazon stock and voting power in divorce
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Jeff Bezos’s soon-to-be ex-wife, MacKenzie, announced that she will give him 75% of her Amazon stock as part of their divorce agreement.
“Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support from each other and everyone who reach out to us in kindness,” MacKenzie Bezos stated. “Happy to be giving him all of my interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75% of our Amazon stock plus voting control of my shares to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies.”
According to a new SEC filing, Bezos informed Amazon on April 4 that “shares representing approximately 4.0 percent of the Company’s outstanding common stock will be registered in MacKenzie T. Bezos’s name as separate property.” The filing notes that “the divorce decree is expected to be issued in approximately 90 days.”
Bezos is the world’s richest person and will remain so, while MacKenzie will become one of the world’s richest women.
Bezos will have “sole voting authority over the shares” with exceptions to those that Mackenzie sells in the open market or contributes to an organization that falls under a certain section of the Internal Revenue Code, according to the filing.
The couple announced their divorce in January 2019 after 25 years of marriage. One month later, Bezos alleged that the National Enquirer tried to blackmail him using intimate photos of him with his mistress, Lauren Sanchez, who was revealed to have been having an affair with the Amazon CEO.
The two got married in 1993 and have four children.
In a tweet, Bezos wrote: “I’m so grateful to all my friends and family for reaching out with encouragement and love. It means more than you know. MacKenzie most of all. I’m grateful for her support and for her kindness in this process and am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents.”
Amazon.com officially debuted in 1995 — founded in Bezos’s Bellevue, Wash., garage — as a bookseller. Within two months, sales reached $20,000, and in May 1997, the company went public at $18 a share.
Amazon (AMZN) is down less than 1% in afternoon trading on Thursday.
Adriana is an associate editor for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @adrianambells.
READ MORE: Amazon history: How Jeff Bezos started with 20 mail order products and then dominated e-commerce
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