MacKenzie Scott (San Francisco, 55 years old) is in 68th place in the list of the richest people in the world Forbes from 2025, a fortune that is due to the Amazon shares that were granted to her after her divorce from Jeff Bezos in 2019. But the American writer is also one of the most generous billionaires: in the last five years she has donated more than 19 billion dollars to various causes of more than 2,000 NGOs. In an essay published on the website of her Yield Giving foundation, which began in 2022, Scott has now shared the anecdotes that motivated her to share her good fortune.
“What generosity did I think of every time I made one of the thousands of donations I was able to offer? It was my neighborhood dentist who offered me free dental treatment when he saw me gluing a broken tooth with denture glue. It was my college roommate who found me crying and, moved by her impulse, lent me $1,000 so I wouldn’t have to drop out of college my sophomore year,” recalls the philanthropist.
In his speech he talks about the importance of individual humanitarian action and how everyday acts of generosity and kindness trigger a positive ripple effect. Of her college friend, she adds, “After seeing the difference she made in my life, what inspired her to do, twenty years later? She founded a company that offers unsecured loans to low-income students. And how quickly did I seize the opportunity to be one of the people who supported her dream of supporting students, just as she once supported me? And who will, in turn, help each of the thousands of students who thrive on those loans driven by generosity and kindness? Gratitude? None of us have an idea.”
Scott’s fortune comes from a divorce settlement with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the third richest person in the world – behind Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg – on the same list as Forbesand to whom she was married for 25 years. The separation agreement left him with about 139 million shares of the company, of which he donated or sold 58 million. Today, his net worth exceeds $35 billion and he has donated $19.25 billion to causes such as racial equity, gender equality, the LGBTIQ+ community, public health and climate change.
Last November, the philanthropist made history with a donation to the cause that started it all: she committed more than $700 million to historically black universities, those institutions of higher education founded in the United States during the period of segregation, according to ABC News. Last weekend alone he donated $63 million, $50 million and $19 million respectively to Prairie View A&M University in Texas, Bowie State University in Maryland and Philander Smith University in Arkansas, according to the same source. The largest donations they have received.
MacKenzie Scott’s work isn’t done and she made it clear in her message that she will continue to donate. “The potential of peaceful, non-transactional contribution has long been underestimated, often on the grounds that it is not financially self-sustaining or that some of its benefits are difficult to measure. But what if those supposed disadvantages were actually advantages? What if those so-called weaknesses fostered the strengths on which the flourishing (or even survival) of our civilization depends? What if caring was a way for all of us to make a difference by leading and shaping our countries? Votes are not the unique” way to show what we would like to see more of in our societies. There are many ways to influence how we move through the world and where we go,” he concludes.
