Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott ended their 25-year marriage in 2019 — and she’s become a major philanthropic force in the years since.
On December 9, Scott announced that she’d donated close to $7.2 billion in the past year, bringing her total giving to more than $26 billion. Scott mentioned the 2025 total, her largest giving announcement to date, in a recent blog post on her philanthropy’s site.
The donations went to colleges and a range of organizations, including ones focused on the environment, women’s rights, and economic security.
As of December 2025, Scott was worth $33.8 billion, according to Forbes, making her one of the world’s richest women. Her $38 billion divorce settlement from her split with Bezos kicked off her journey into charitable giving. A regulatory filing showed that Scott sold 42% of her Amazon stake in 2025, totaling roughly $12.6 billion.
Scott’s giving differs from that of many billionaires. She gives large, unrestricted donations — bucking a common belief that nonprofits can’t handle this type of gift.
“Its breadth and scale are unprecedented for a donor operating outside of a foundation structure,” Elisha Smith Arrillaga, the VP of research at the Center for Effective Philanthropy, told Business Insider. “For years, the relative scarcity of meaningfully sized, unrestricted gifts has been a source of frustration for nonprofit leaders.”
The size of Scott’s gifts enables the nonprofit to do long-term planning. Additionally, Scott forgoes the classic application process, which can be burdensome. Instead, “her staff takes on the bulk of the vetting,” Smith Arrillaga said.
“It’s no overstatement to say that MacKenzie Scott has revolutionized philanthropy,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the CEO of a refugee charity that received a donation from Scott, previously told Business Insider.
Just two months before her divorce, Scott had signed the Giving Pledge initiative, committing to giving away half her wealth. She’s given away her money at a faster pace than most other major philanthropists, according to Forbes, donating nearly $2 billion in 2022, almost $2.2 billion in 2023, and around $2 billion in 2024, according to blog posts.
Melinda French Gates, the former wife of Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, said in 2022 she had “huge respect” for Scott’s “trust-based” approach to philanthropy.
However, Scott’s charitable giving has drawn criticism in the past from one of the world’s richest people: Elon Musk.
Musk, who has been a vocal critic of DEI initiatives, criticized Scott in 2024 while replying to another X user’s claims that the majority of her chosen charities were organizations that “deal with issues of race and/or gender.”
But the SpaceX founder’s comments have appeared to have no effect on Scott’s philanthropy, as she’s continued to donate to diversity-related causes.
