Jeff Bezos makes $2,489 per second. In the time it would take to make a cup of tea, Bezos could put a down payment on a flat in South Kensington without breaking a sweat and still have money left over.
While Bezos has come under fire with particular vigour for his extraordinary wealth amid the pandemic, his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott has received praise for quite the opposite – donating some $2 billion and counting to a wide range of causes in crisis.
Scott received a share of four per cent of Amazon following her divorce, and has signed a Giving Pledge alongside Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates, which is committed to the super-rich giving away the bulk of their wealth in their own lifetime. Scott notes that she "watched the first half of 2020 with a mixture of heartbreak and horror.”
Scott is conservatively estimated to be worth $60 billion and has pledged that she will “keep going until the safe is empty”. In a post on Medium, she noted: “a dividend of privilege I’d been overlooking: the attention I can call to organisations and leaders driving change”.
She continues: "There's no question in my mind that anyone's personal wealth is the product of a collective effort, and of social structures which present opportunities to some people, and obstacles to countless others.”
Thus far, the causes Scott has donated to include traditionally black universities, organisations who focus on fighting climate change and economic inequality, and LQBTQ groups to spend as they please.
With sum $58 billion still to give, not including the interest the sum accrues, Rebecca Nicholson notes that : “The numbers remain incomprehensible.”
