Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, and his wife MacKenzie split up 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 on Wednesday that both of them signed.
Both of them stumbled upon each other when they worked at hedge fund D.E. Shaw, and they got married in 1993. Then he founded Amazon a year later. Bezos, 54, is worth $137 billion, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest individuals.
This divorce could shuffle the wealth rankings and if the couple divides their fortune equally, MacKenzie, 48, could be left with $69 billion, which would make her the world’s richest woman. This would also make Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, the richest person on the planet once again.
It should be noted that the state of Washington- where Amazon is based and the couple have a home is a community property state, so all property and debt acquired during a marriage “will be divided equitably by the court if the couple cannot negotiate an agreement,” as per the website of McKinley Irvin, a family law firm in the region.
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