Divorce is an awful thing to have to go through. But it does have some upsides to it, especially if your name is MacKenzie Bezos.
In one of the most high-stakes divorces ever, the novelist walked away with tens of billions of dollars. Over a year later, she’s well on her way to becoming the richest woman in the world.
Richer and Richer
MacKenzie, whose maiden name is MacKenzie Scott Tuttle, had a net worth of $38 billion following her divorce from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. She’s added another $12 billion to it, though as her ex-husband’s company continues to grow.
The recent Amazon share price surge made MacKenzie $50 billion rich. This effectively cemented her place as the fourth richest woman in the world.
Four billion more and she’ll move past third place holder Alice Walton, who has a current net worth of $54 billion.
But what would it take for her to finally secure the top spot?
Next Achievement
Since her wealth primarily comes from the value of her 4% stake in Amazon, MacKenzie would benefit from future price hikes of the company’s stock. It just reached an all-time high of about $2,600.
And if Amazon can continue to grow even with the coronavirus pandemic, it might be safe to say that it would continue to do so in the near future. Analysts at the Royal Bank of Canada certainly think so as they just raised their target price for Amazon to $3,300.
If their predictions come true, MacKenzie’s personal wealth would grow to $64 billion making her the richest woman in the world, considering that her competitors didn’t experience similar growth.
Joint Efforts
Now, MacKenzie has her fair share of critics who might undermine her fortune as a product of luck marrying and divorcing the richest man on the planet.
Looking back at her and Bezos’ story, it’s pretty clear that she played an important role in the success of the company. During the early days of their marriage, the ex-couple took the risk of quitting their jobs to work on Bezos’ business idea.
The decision was certainly a big one as both of them worked at good jobs before leaving. Their hard work paid off though, as Amazon is now one of the largest corporations in the world.