SAN FRANCISCO: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos finalised their divorce on Friday to the tune of a $38-billion settlement, Bloomberg News reported.

Under the agreement, MacKenzie Bezos, 49, will receive approximately 19.7 million Amazon.com shares, giving her a four percent stake in the company valued at $38.3 billion, and landing her at 22nd on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the news service said.

A judge in Washington state’s King County finalised the divorce. Jeff Bezos, 55, will retain a 12 percent stake and remain the world’s richest man.

MacKenzie Bezos, a novelist, has said she would give all of her stake in The Washington Post and the space exploration firm Blue Origin to her husband as well as voting control of her remaining Amazon stock.

She has also promised to donate half her fortune to charity, joining the ranks of the world’s ultra-wealthy philanthropists as a signatory of the Giving Pledge.

The personal life of Jeff Bezos was thrust into the spotlight with the announcement in January that he and his wife were divorcing after 25 years of marriage and the revelation by the National Enquirer that he had been having an affair with a former news anchor, Lauren Sanchez.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2019