Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and novelist MacKenzie Bezos have announced their divorce after 25 years of marriage, sparking speculation the end of their relationship could be one of the most expensive splits in history.
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Taking to Twitter, the e-commerce kingpin – whose net worth is currently estimated at a Totally Normal™ AUD $191 billion – said “after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared life as friends.”
“If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again,” the statement added.
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) January 9, 2019
The pair first met as colleagues at New York City hedge fund DE Shaw. They married in 1993, and both quit the firm a year later to pursue his dream of an e-commerce bookstore in Seattle.
MacKenzie was one of Amazon’s first employees and worked on the firm’s accounts as the venture took shape. According to Wired, she handled some of the firm’s first freight contracts while working at a Barnes & Noble bookstore – a company which would eventually face intense and overpowering competition from Amazon itself.
A Princeton graduate who once worked under legendary novelist Toni Morrison, MacKenzie returned to her own writing in the years after Amazon’s initial success. She has released two novels, the first of which, The Testing of Luther Albright, collected an American Book Award in 2006. Meanwhile, as chairman and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos became the richest individual in history.
The personal successes flourished along with their family, which now includes three sons and a daughter.
That’s all well and good, but having enough material wealth to start your own space exploration firm makes divorce a complicated matter, and Washington‘s laws around separations dictate their wealth fortune could theoretically be split down the middle during negotiations. There’s already speculation that matters may be influenced by MacKenzie’s foundational role within the company, and that she may be entitled to as much as AUD $92 billion.
There’s no indication of a prenuptial agreement between the pair, but the couple’s statement indicates things are more than amicable. Regardless, folks have already started questioning the mechanics of the situation, and have riffed on the frankly preposterous wealth the two have acquired.
Jeff Bezos is getting divorced after realizing that marriage counts as a union.
— River Clegg (@RiverClegg) January 9, 2019
https://twitter.com/BenUdashen/status/1083041031715573760
the lawyers handling bezos divorce pic.twitter.com/KLSvLvgk7V
— Brett Molina (@brettmolina23) January 9, 2019
