“Jeff remains focused on and engaged in all aspects of Amazon,” Drew Herdener, a spokesman for the retailer, said in an emailed statement in response to a question about how the divorce might affect the company and its investors.
A divorce could reshape the global wealth ranking. If the couple split their fortune equally, it could leave MacKenzie, 48, with $69 billion, making her the world’s richest woman. It could also make Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, currently worth $92.5 billion, the planet’s richest person once again. Bezos eclipsed Gates in October 2017.
The state of Washington -- where Amazon is based and the couple have a home -- is a community property state, which means all property and debt acquired during a marriage “will be divided equitably by the court if the couple cannot negotiate an agreement,” according to the website of McKinley Irvin, a family law firm in the region.
There is no set formula in Washington law as to how assets should be split, said Jennifer Payseno, a partner with McKinley Irvin in Seattle who handles high-net worth divorce cases for the firm. Wealthy couples often agree how to divide their assets before bringing the matter to a judge, and those detail are often filed confidentially with the court."My guess is they’ve probably have already worked up some sort of framework, and that’s why they’re announcing it now,” Payseno said of the Bezoses. “It’s not going to be made public.”
Washington state also mandates a 90-day cooling off period between the day a couple initially files for divorce, and the soonest it can be finalized by a judge. A search of King County public records on Wednesday turned up no such filing from Jeff or MacKenzie Bezos.
An equal division of such a fortune would be unprecedented. While Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison has been through multiple divorces, none has affected his stake in the software maker. Likewise, Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s stake remained unchanged after he and Anne Wojcicki divorced without fanfare in 2015.
Oil industry magnate Harold Hamm’s separation from Sue Ann Arnall was far messier. The couple filed for divorce in 2012 after 26 years of marriage, and their trial two years later ended with Hamm, the chairman and CEO of Continental Resources Inc., being ordered to pay her $972 million of his then-estimated $16.1 billion fortune. Arnall later sought to reopen the case but the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in 2015.
While its unclear whether the Bezoses have a prenuptial agreement, a split is unlikely to be as acrimonious. Because so much of their wealth is tied up in a publicly traded company, both have an interest in a business-like divorce, said Michael Stutman, a divorce attorney at Stutman, Stutman & Lichtenstein in New York.
“They have a mutual interest in making sure that no one is concerned that the ship has sprung a leak,” he said. “You need to filter their public comments through that lens.”
When Elaine Wynn divorced casino mogul Steve Wynn, the pair split their 20 percent stake in Wynn Resorts Ltd., with Elaine giving him voting control over her shares and agreeing to limit her stock sales. The relationship began to change after Steve remarried in 2011, culminating in lawsuits and accusations of sexual harassment, forcing him to sell his stake.