Mackenzie Scott is now the richest woman in the world with a net worth of $68 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire index.
Scott is a philanthropist and the ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man. Her new status comes as she surpassed Franoise Bettencourt Meyers, an heiress to L’Oreal who controls 33% of the world’s largest cosmetics maker and counts a net worth of $66.8 billion, according to Bloomberg.
The split was announced in January 2019 after 25 years of marriage and four children. That April, they reached a settlement that let Scott keep a four percent stake in Amazon valued at $38.3 billion at the time, Bloomberg reported.
Scott wrote on Twitter at the time that she was also giving Bezos all of her interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, as well as 75 percent of their Amazon stock, plus voting control of her shares “to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies.”
Sometimes in July, Scott said she donated $1.7 billion of her wealth in the past year to several different causes including racial equality, LGBTQ rights, public health, and climate change.
In 2019, Scott also signed onto the Giving Pledge initiative, which encourages the richest people in the world to donate a majority of their wealth to charity.
Scott is the richest woman on Bloomberg’s list and the 12th wealthiest person, behind well-known tech moguls including Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Tesla’s Elon Musk, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
The 16 richest Americans in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes Billionaires List are collectively worth more than $1 trillion.
While tech heavyweights populate the top ranks of the lists, they appear alongside other familiar figures like members of the powerful Koch and Walton families.