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MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos, has recently sold 11% of her Amazon shares, valued at over $8 billion.
The Details: Scott received approximately 400 million Amazon shares as part of her divorce settlement with Bezos in 2019 and signed The Giving Pledge, a commitment to donate most of her wealth during her lifetime. The latest sale brings her total Amazon stock sales and donations to 255 million shares valued at approximately $37 billion.
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Scott has disposed of two-thirds of her Amazon shares in less than six years since the divorce. According to Forbes, she is one of the five most generous living donors in the U.S. and has given at least $17.3 billion to more than 2,300 separate nonprofit groups.
Forbes speculates the remaining $20 billion could be sitting in her various charitable accounts, with the shares likely sold, regardless of whether Scott moved them into one of her many reported donor-advised funds.
“Most charities have a policy of immediate sale,” Holly Welch Stubbing, CEO of National Philanthropic Trust, a donor-advised-fund sponsor where Scott reportedly has an account, per Forbes.
One organization Scott supported with proceeds from sales of Amazon shares is the West Philadelphia Skills Initiative, which helps job seekers find careers and employers locate top talent. Scott donated $4 million in unrestricted funds to the organization.
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“They’re not asking us to do anything different. They’re saying you’re doing a really good job. Keep going, we trust you,” said Cait Garozzo, executive director of the West Philadelphia Skills Initiative. “And that means a lot. It allows us to experiment and innovate to leverage the investment funds that we already have to grow in a way that feels authentic.”
