Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will maintain the same level of control over the company he founded, after details of his divorce settlement became public.
Following the end of his marriage to the novelist MacKenzie Bezos, the world’s richest man will maintain 75% of the couple’s Amazon shares. The couple had owned 16% of the company’s shares. While his former partner now owns 4% of the company, she has given up voting control associated with those shares.
However, that 4% of Amazon is a fair chunk of change. At the time of writing, it’s worth $36 billion. The divorce settlement immediately makes MacKenzie Bezos the third richest woman in the world. According to Forbes, she trails only L’Oreal’s Francoise Bettencourt Meyers and Walmart’s Alice Walton in terms of estimated wealth.
Amazingly, despite having that sum knocked off his own Value, Bezos is still the richest bloke in the world. In fact, he still has more money than anyone has ever had. Ever. He’s worth $110 billion, while his closest rival, Microsoft’s Bill Gates only has $99 billion.
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In a tweet on Thursday, MacKenzie Bezos also revealed that her former husband will maintain complete ownership of the couple’s other major assets; The Washington Post and the Blue Origin space company.
She wrote: “Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff from each other. Happy to be giving him all my interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75% of our Amazon stock plus voting control of my shares to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies.”
Should we live in a world where losing $36 billion keeps you as the world’s richest man, while your employees are reportedly sleeping in cars and too scared to take a toilet break they have to pee in bottles?
Have you broken up with Amazon over reported working conditions of its employees? Or can’t you live without Amazon Prime? Let us know @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
