Jeff Bezos’ Wife May Get 67 Billion USD After The Divorce

Soon enough, Jeff Bezos will have a familiar face watching him in running Amazon, his soon-to-be ex-wife.

On Wednesday, Bezos, and MacKenzie – his wife announced that they have plans to get divorced after being married for over 25 years. Since most of their total $137 billion wealth is Bezos’ stock in Amazon, it looks like MacKenzie will become a substantial stakeholder in Amazon as the result of any agreements on the separation between them. In fact, apart from Bezos, she is highly likely to gain the most substantial stake in Amazon.

“I can't see anywhere else the settlement could come from,” stated Ira Garr, the representative of Rupert Murdoch and Ivana Trump in their divorces.

Currently, Bezos possesses around 79 million Amazon shares which equal approximately $130 billion worth. This means Bezos is the largest shareholder at Amazon, with 16 percent stake. Vanguard is Amazon’s second largest shareholder with 6 percent.

According to legal experts, MacKenzie may choose to keep her shares in Amazon even though she can take cash, which means Bezos has to sell roughly 39 million shares, or sell the shares by herself. Garr said that if MacKenzie decides to take cash instead of keeping the shares, “the stock would go way down.”

MacKenzie may benefit if the divorce is filed in Washington

MacKenzie can settle with so many shares at the company is mostly because of where the proceedings may occur.

It’s possible and logical that the couple will file their divorce to Washington State, where Amazon’s headquarter is located and the couple has lived for almost their marriage. The point is proceeding the divorce in Washington means Washington law will govern the marriage’s dissolution.

Washington, a community-property state, considers the assets obtained during a marriage mutual assets of both parties. The state law will divide the assets between the two parties in case the couple gets divorced.

Legal experts note that in Washington, the assets are not necessarily split evenly between two spouses like in other states. However, according to James Spencer - an attorney with Brothers & Henderson and an adjunct professor at Seattle University's School of Law – since Bezos and MacKenzie have got married for a long time and the establishment of Amazon occurred after their wedding, the divorce is likely to be arranged this way.

Bezos and Mackenzie may settle out of court

Spencer and other legal experts don’t think the Bezoses will dissolve their marriage in court. They think the two will do this out of court, probably through negotiations between themselves or their lawyers or maybe through arbitration. In that case, Washington’s community property law won’t directly affect their divorce outcome.

Deirdre Bowen, a law associate professor at Seattle University's law school, said that MacKenzie is likely to have her marriage settled out of court and she may start the negotiating with half of their community assets.

However, if the couple signed a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, MacKenzie may obtain much fewer shares than half of Bezos’ existing stock.

It’s not known if such an agreement had been signed between them.

MacKenzie and Bezos will fight for their benefits

Another factor that can affect the dissolution is how the negotiators or an arbiter or judge will classify the assets, probably separated into passive and active. In that case, if Bezos manages to convince the ruling party that most of the wealth was generated from his own active management at the company and MacKenzie did not contribute to that at all, the wife may end up with much fewer shares than she expects. With this in mind, the couple may go into negotiations with a different state and emotion.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez 

Notably, although the two announced that their divorce decision came amicably, late Wednesday report from the New York Post pointed out that Bezos is having an affair with Lauren Sanchez, a former TV anchor. If it’s true, the event will surely have a strong effect on how the negotiation will go.  MacKenzie said she might demand a large cash payout.

Bowen said that may not happen as she considers MacKenzie, a reasonable woman. But Bowen also said MacKenzie doesn’t want to hold something that Bezos control, she said she wanted him removed from her life.

Additionally, Amazon’s board wouldn’t want to put such huge stake in MacKenzie’s hand either, considering the negative relationship they have. The board will take actions to limit MacKenzie’s ownership at the company, either by making Bezos sell them for cash or having her exchange the shares for other assets.