MacKenzie Bezos, the Ex-wife of Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos, has sold around $400 million of her stake in the e-commerce retailer. The move reported on Friday was filed under the name of Jeff Bezos, who has voting rights over her stake.
MacKenzie reduces her stake in Amazon
MacKenzie received 4% of the company when they finalized their divorce last year, which took her worth to around $37 billion. Although her stake is not disclosed on an on-going basis according to regulatory filing, MacKenzie owns around 19.5 million shares, which are 200,000 shares less than the 19.7 million she received when they finalized the divorce.
It is not clear why she chose to reduce her stake; neither is the timing of the transaction. Recently MacKenzie signed the Giving Pledge in which she promised to give 505 of her fortune to charity. The Giving Pledge is an initiative that Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates started in 2010. The disposed shares are estimated to be worth $400 million currently, and therefore, the remaining stake is worth around $36.3 billion. Jeff Bezos, the largest shareholder in Amazon, owns around $107 billion worth of shares.
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia involved in the breaching of Bezos phone
Recently there was a revelation that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia was involved in the hacking of Jeff Bezos’ phone that led to the leaking of damaging photos that leading to the divorce. Bezos was reported having a chat with the Crown Prince when he reportedly received a video that had malware that corrupted his phone, and a lot of information was stolen. Following the breach, The Enquirer published some photos of Bezos and his girlfriend, but they insisted that the information came from his girlfriend’s embattled brother.
The claims are damaging on the Prince, who is trying to repair damage caused last year following the murder of the Washington Post columnists Jamal Khashoggi. The hacking was to influence the Washington Post from covering the murder. Bezos owns the Washington Post.
