MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon.com Inc's billionaire Chief Executive Jeff Bezos , has donated $1.7 billion of her wealth in the past year to causes including racial equality, LGBTQ rights, public health and climate change, she said in a blog post on Tuesday.
Ms. Scott, who was previously known as MacKenzie Bezos , also announced her new last name, which she said was taken from her middle name.
Last year, Ms. Scott signed the Giving Pledge in a commitment to donate the majority of her fortune after her split from Bezos — the world's richest man — left her with a 4% stake in Amazon.
“Like many, I watched the first half of 2020 with a mixture of heartbreak and horror,” she wrote in a post on Medium.
“I began work to complete my pledge with the belief that my life had yielded two assets that could be of particular value to others: the money these systems helped deliver to me, and a conviction that people who have experience with inequities are the ones best equipped to design solutions,” she added.
At the time of the divorce, her stake was worth about $36 billion. Her fortune has grown to over $60 billion with a jump in Amazon's shares this year.
Ms. Scott made her announcement a day before Jeff Bezos will appear for his first-ever Congressional testimony in front of an antitrust panel, which has been investigating how Amazon has used its market power to hurt smaller rivals.
