MacKenzie Scott: My Favorite Billionaire

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Seattle resident MacKenzie Scott did something altruistic a couple of years ago:  she signed a "Giving Pledge" stating that she would give at least half of her wealth to charity over the course of her lifetime or as a final bequest.  The "Giving Pledge" program was organized in 2010 by billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates.  

And MacKenzie Scott, whose net worth is somewhere north of $50 billion, has plenty to share.

(In addition to being a philanthropist of note, MacKenzie Scott is also a writer with two critically acclaimed novels to her credit and surely more on the way.  She was a student of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Toni Morrison, and served as a research assistant to Morrison.)

Ms. Scott is also the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com and currently the world's second richest human.  She is not, however, some bubble-headed trophy wife who made a lucky catch, but rather a savvy business woman and hard worker who married Bezos before Amazon and who helped him found, organize, and run the company that taught the world haw to market on-line.   When the couple split after more than a quarter-century of marriage, she took four percent of Amazon's stock with her - the primary source of her wealth.

So when MacKenzie Scott says that she will give at least half of her fortune away, she ain't talking peanuts.

Ms. Scott signed the "Giving Pledge" in 2019, after her divorce from Bezos.  Her new husband, a Seattle area high school science teacher, has also signed the pledge.

Ms. Scott says that her giving primarily focuses on support of "underrepresented people from groups of all kinds."  Since last June the charitable billionaire has given more than twelve billion dollars to over 1,250 groups.  Some of the donations seem to be designed to raise of eyebrows of certain segments of the population.  Yesterday, for instance, a new round of donations was announced that included $275 million to Planned Parenthood, a perennial target of right-wing politicians, and $413 million to Habitat for Humanity, an organization that builds homes for low-income individuals.   (The donation to Planned Parenthood was the largest donation from a single source that the organization has ever received.)

Ms. Scott also supports charitable initiatives as diverse as the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Urban Teachers, and the National Rural Health Association.

Many members of Congress, the legislative body which sets the nation's spending priorities through control of the government's pursestrings, do not seem to mind that some of the world's richest individuals, like MacKenzie Scott's ex-husband, pay no taxes, but they may well become interested in the spending patterns of billionaires when they see their massive wealth going to support things they abhor - like reproductive health care for women!

But for those of us who are less "special" than members of Congress, it is refreshing to learn that one of the world's richest people is a true human being!