Jeff Bezos's Divorce Could Make His Wife MacKenzie Bezos the Richest Woman in the World
Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, and his wife MacKenzie are divorcing after 25 years.
“After a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends,” according to a tweet Wednesday that both of them signed.
The couple met when they worked at hedge fund D.E. Shaw, and married in 1993. He founded Amazon a year later. Bezos, 54, is worth $137 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest individuals.
A divorce could reshape the wealth rankings. If the couple split their fortune equally, it could leave MacKenzie, 48, with $69 billion, making her the world’s richest woman. It could also make Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates the planet’s richest person once again.
The state of Washington -- where Amazon is based and the couple have a home -- is a community property state, which means all property and debt acquired during a marriage “will be divided equitably by the court if the couple cannot negotiate an agreement,” according to the website of McKinley Irvin, a family law firm in the region.
This story originally appeared on Bloomberg.