MacKenzie Scott (néeTuttle, formerlyBezos; born April 7, 1970)[1][2] is an American novelist, philanthropist, and early contributor toAmazon. She was married toJeff Bezos, the co-founder of Amazon, from 1993 to 2019. As of July 2025, she has a net worth ofUS$41.9 billion, according toBloomberg Billionaires Index, owning a 1.3 per cent stake in Amazon.[3][4][5] As such, Scott is the third-wealthiest woman in the United States and the 40th-wealthiest person in the world.[5] Scott was named one ofTime's100 most influential people in 2020 and one of theworld's 100 most powerful women byForbes in 2021 and 2023.[6][7]
In 2006, Scott won anAmerican Book Award for her 2005debut novel,The Testing of Luther Albright.[8] Her second novel,Traps, was published in 2013. She has been executive director ofBystander Revolution, ananti-bullying organization, since she founded it in 2014.[9] She is committed to giving at least half of her wealth to charity as a signatory to theGiving Pledge.[10] Scott made $5.8 billion in charitable gifts in 2020, one of the largest annual distributions by a private individual to working charities.[11][12] She donated a further $2.7 billion in 2021.[13] As of mid-December 2024, Scott had given a total of $19.3 billion to over 1,600 charitable organizations.[4][14][15]
MacKenzie Scott Tuttle was born on April 7, 1970, in San Francisco, California, to Holiday Robin (née Cuming), a homemaker, and Jason Baker Tuttle, a financial planner.[16][17] She has two brothers.[16] She was named after her maternal grandfather, G. Scott Cuming, who worked as an executive and general counsel atEl Paso Natural Gas.[16] She says she remembers writing seriously at the age of six, when she wroteThe Book Worm, a 142-page book that was destroyed in a flood.[18]
After graduating from college, Tuttle worked as a research assistant to Morrison for the 1992 novelJazz.[18] She also worked in New York City in an administrative role forhedge fundD. E. Shaw, where she met Jeff Bezos.[18]
In 1993, Scott and Bezos married. The following year, they left D. E. Shaw, moved toSeattle, and Bezos foundedAmazon with Scott's support. Scott was one of Amazon's early key contributors, and was heavily involved in Amazon's early days, working on the company's name, business plan, accounts and order shipping,[18][8] and negotiating the company's first freight contract.[8] After 1996, Scott took a less involved role in the business, focusing on her literary career and family.[18] Their oldest son was born in 2000.[20]
Scott was introduced to the literary agentAmanda "Binky" Urban by Toni Morrison, her former professor.[17] In 2005, she published her debut novel,The Testing of Luther Albright, which won anAmerican Book Award in 2006. Scott said that the book took her ten years to write as she was helping Bezos build Amazon and raising her family.[21] Toni Morrison reviewed the book as "a rarity: a sophisticated novel that breaks and swells the heart".[18] Her second novel,Traps, was published in 2013.[22] According toNPD BookScan, sales of her books were modest.[18]
At anaturalization ceremony on June 14, 2016 (center in the back)
Scott was married toJeff Bezos,[23][24] whom she met while working as an administrative assistant atD. E. Shaw in 1992. After three months of dating, they married and moved from Manhattan toSeattle, Washington, in 1994.[18] They have four children: three sons and an adopted daughter.[25] Their oldest son was born in 2000.[20]
Theircommunity property divorce in 2019 left Scott with $35.6 billion in Amazon stock, but her former husband retained 75% of the couple's Amazon stock.[18] She became thethird-wealthiest woman in the world and one of thewealthiest people overall in April 2019.[26][18] In July 2020, Scott was ranked the 22nd-richest person in the world byForbes with a net worth estimated at $36 billion.[27] By September 2020, Scott was named the world's richest woman, and by December 2020, her net worth was estimated at $62 billion.[28][29]
After her divorce from Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Bezos changed her name to MacKenzie Scott, with the surname deriving from her middle name given at birth.[2]
In 2021, Scott then marriedLakeside School science teacher Dan Jewett.[30] The marriage was revealed in Jewett'sGiving Pledge letter posted in March 2021.[31][32] In September 2022, Scott filed for divorce, which was finalized in January 2023.[33][34]
In May 2019, Scott signed theGiving Pledge, a charitable-giving campaign in which she undertook to give away most of her wealth to charity over her lifetime or in her will. The pledge is not legally binding.[35]
According to official announcements from HBCUs and theUNCF, Scott has donated about $1.06 billion to support HBCUs between 2020 and 2025.[40][41] The awards ranged from $19 million forPhilander Smith University to $80 million forHoward University.[42]
In December 2020, less than six months later, Scott stated that she had donated a further $4.15 billion in the previous four months to 384 organizations, with a focus on providing support to people affected by theeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and addressing long-term systemic inequities.[43] She said that after July, she wanted her advisory team to give her wealth away faster as the United States struggled with the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 while billionaires' wealth continued to climb. Her team's focus was on "identifying organizations with strong leadership teams and results, with special attention to those operating in communities facing high projected food insecurity, high measures of racial inequity, high local poverty rates, and low access to philanthropic capital."[44] Scott's 2020 charitable giving totaled $5.8 billion, one of the largest annual distributions by a private individual to working charities.[45][11]
Scott announced another $2.7 billion in giving to 286 organizations in June 2021.[46]Forbes reported that Scott donated $8.5 billion across 780 organizations in one year (July 2020 to July 2021).[47] In June 2021, Scott andMelinda French Gates launched the Equality Can't Wait Challenge, a contest to promote gender equality[48] and expanding women's power and influence in the United States by 2030.[49] The four winners received $10 million each, and an additional $8 million was split between the two finalists.[48] In February 2022, nine organizations announced gifts from Scott totaling $264.5 million.[50] TheAssociation for Women's Rights in Development received a $15 million donation.[51] On March 23, 2022, more gifts were announced, including $436 million toHabitat for Humanity[52] and $275 million toPlanned Parenthood.[53][54] In May 2022, theBig Brothers, Big Sisters foundation reported a $122.6 million donation from Scott.[55] Scott has also made donations to organizations inKenya, India, Brazil,Micronesia, andLatin America.[56] In April 2022,The New York Times reported that Scott's donations since 2019 have exceeded $12 billion.[16] In September 2022, Scott donated two of her Beverly Hills homes, worth a combined $55 million, to theCalifornia Community Foundation (CCF), which provides grants to mission-based nonprofits in Los Angeles. The organization intended to sell both homes and use 90% of the earnings to fundaffordable housing initiatives and direct the other 10% to an immigrant integration program.[57] In October 2022, Scott donated $84.5 million toGirl Scouts of the USA and its 29 local councils. This was the largest donation from an individual in the organization's history.[58] As of November 2022, Scott had donated almost $14 billion to 1500 organizations.[14]
In March 2023, Scott announced an "open call" for community-focused nonprofits with annual budgets between $1 and $5 million[59] that she could fund. Scott planned to make unrestricted $1 million donations to 250 nonprofits selected in the process.[60] Lever for Change announced that Scott's open call for grants prompted 6,000 applicants.[61] The result was announced on March 19, 2024.[62] She ended up donating $640 million to 361 small nonprofits, giving more than double what the original open call planned for,[62] with 279 non-profits receiving $2 million each, and 82 groups receiving $1 million each.[63] Scott donated nearly $2.2 billion in 2023 to 360 organizations supporting early learning, access to affordable housing, race and gender equity, health equity, and civic and social engagement.[64] She donated $5 million to the Hawaii Community Foundation. The foundation intended to use 75% of the donation to fund the Maui Strong Fund, a fund created to support the long-term recovery fromMaui wildfires.[65] As of December 2023, Scott had donated more than $16 billion to non-profit organizations.[66] In March 2024, Scott's donations has reached $17.2 billion.[67]
In December 2024, Scott announced that she began to direct her advisors to invest her wealth in for-profit companies and funds seeking solutions to societal challenges.[68] She stated, "When I make gifts, rather than withdrawing funds from a bank account, or from a stock portfolio that increases the wealth and influence of leaders who already have it, I'd like to withdraw them from a portfolio of investments in mission-aligned ventures."[69]
Forbes reported, "the unrestricted and ultimately more trusting nature of Scott's philanthropy is the exception, not the norm in their world."[47]The New York Times noted that "Ms. Scott has turned traditional philanthropy on its head... by disbursing her money quickly and without much hoopla, Ms. Scott has pushed the focus away from the giver, and onto the nonprofits, she is trying to help."[70] Scott stated she believed "teams with experience on the front lines of challenges will know best how to put the money to good use."[44][71] According to a report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy, slightly more than half of the 277 nonprofit organizations surveyed stated that their grant from Scott has made fundraising easier, with some saying they are able to use it as leverage with other donors and the large gift "has enabled organizations to focus funds where they were most needed to achieve their mission."[14] According to Senior Vice President of theRockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Renee Karibi-Whyte, competitions like Scott's open call can help organizations who do not have connections with a specific funder get considered.[59] In December 2021, Scott faced backlash for a Medium post when she stated she would not reveal how much money she has donated or to whom.[72] She subsequently announced that her team would build a website to share details of her philanthropy.[72] In December 2022, she posted the link to her donation database, called Yield Giving.[4][73] Per the website, "Yield is named after a belief in adding value by giving up control."[74]
^abcdKulish, Nicholas; Ruiz, Rebecca R. (April 10, 2022)."The Fortunes of MacKenzie Scott".The New York Times.Archived from the original on August 2, 2022. RetrievedAugust 1, 2022.
^Salas, Margarita; Duque, Astrid (October 2, 2023)."AWID 2022 Annual Report"(PDF). With contributions from all AWID staff. The Association for Women’s Rights in Development. p. 24. RetrievedJuly 17, 2024.
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