The world’s richest couple revealed the terms of their divorce on Thursday as Jeff and McKenzie Bezos – seen as the “parents” of the global online retail giant and media company Amazon – wrapped up their painful split.
MacKenzie, now the ex-wife of Amazon’s founder and chief executive officer Jeff, will give 75% of their stake in the company and all voting rights to the billionaire entrepreneur.
Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. The agreement does not make McKenzie the richest woman in the world, as speculation has suggested it might. She will have to get along on the proceeds of her stake, estimated at $36bn at current market prices.
The world’s richest woman, according to Bloomberg estimates, is the L’Oréal cosmetics heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, whose net worth is estimated at $45.6bn. Jeff and MacKenzie’s total stake in Amazon of $143bn had made them the richest couple in the world.
As part of the terms of their divorce, MacKenzie Bezos will also relinquish all her interests in the Washington Post newspaper, which her then husband snapped up for a mere $250m in a surprise deal in 2013, and rocket company Blue Origin, she said in a tweet on Thursday.
The pair announced in January that they planned to divorce.
At the time, they said: “As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends,” the announcement posted on Twitter read. “We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other and deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married to each other.
“If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again.”