SEATTLE (AP) — MacKenzie Scott, philanthropist, writer and former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has married a Seattle science teacher.
Her new husband, Dan Jewett, made the announcement in a letter to the website of the nonprofit organization the Giving Pledge on Saturday.
Jewett has been a teacher for decades and most recently taught chemistry at the private Lakeside School, which Scott’s children attended.
“And now, in a stroke of happy coincidence, I am married to one of the most generous and kind people I know — and joining her in a commitment to pass on an enormous financial wealth to serve others,” Jewett wrote.
Scott and Bezos were married in 1993, the year before he started Amazon as an online bookseller. They had both attended Princeton University but did not meet until they were working at a Manhattan investment firm in 1992. They had four children and divorced in 2019.
Scott, 50, is said by Bloomberg News to be worth $57.5 billion, putting her No. 20 on the list of the world’s richest people.
She was listed as No. 2 among Americans who gave the most to charity last year, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual rankings. Her contributions of almost $6 billion in 2020 included $10 million to Goodwill of Silicon Valley.
Bezos, 57, topped the list by donating $10 billion to launch the Bezos Earth Fund.
Jewett’s online résumé said he started teaching at Lakeside in 2016, and previously had taught at Bush — another Seattle private school — and in Philadelphia-area public schools. The prestigious Lakeside is known as the alma mater of Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
