SEATTLE • It is official. MacKenzie and Jeff Bezos are divorced after 25 years of marriage.
A judge in King County, Washington, signed an order formalising the separation on Friday. That sets the stage for the transfer of some 19.7 million Amazon shares to Ms Bezos name. The Bezoses announced the split in January.
That 4 per cent holding is valued at US$38.3 billion (S$52 billion), enough to place her 22nd on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 richest people. Her former husband, the founder and chief executive of the world’s largest online retailer, retains a 12 per cent stake worth US$114.8 billion and remains the world’s wealthiest person.
The court papers formalising the divorce revealed little else about the terms of the separation. The couple filed a parenting plan for their children earlier last week.
Ms Bezos, a 49-year-old novelist, said in an April tweet that she was giving the 55-year-old Mr Bezos all of her interests in The Washington Post that he owns, and space exploration company Blue Origin.
She also signed the Giving Pledge in May, promising to donate more than half of her fortune to philanthropy.
The personal life of Mr Bezos was thrust into the spotlight with the announcement in January that he and his wife were divorcing and the revelation by the National Enquirer that he had been having an affair with a former news anchor, Ms Lauren Sanchez.
BLOOMBERG, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE