MacKenzie Scott — philanthropist, author and ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos — is now the wealthiest woman in the world. Scott’s net worth is now $68 billion, propelling her past L’Oréal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire index.
Scott received a quarter of Bezos’ Amazon shares in the couple’s divorce settlement in 2019. That equated to a 4% stake that was worth more than $35 billion at the time. She is now the 12th wealthiest person in the world.
This comes about a month after it was reported that Bezos added $13 billion to his net worth, the largest single-day jump for an individual since the Bloomberg Billionaires Index was created in 2012. For context, that’s more than the combined total worth of Nigerian moneybags, Aliko Dangote, Abdul Samad Rabiu and Femi Otedola.
Amazon.com Inc shares surged 7.9%, the most since December 2018 on rising optimism about web shopping trends, and are now up 73% this year.
Bezos, Amazon’s 56-year-old founder and the world’s richest person, has seen his fortune swell $74 billion in 2020 to $189.3 billion, despite the US entering its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. He’s now personally worth more than the market valuation of giants such as Exxon Mobil Corp, Nike Inc and McDonald’s Corp.
