Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Stake Takes Major Dip After His Ex Slashed Her Shares Amid Reports He & His New Wife Are Going to Court For Money
Jeff Bezos is, above all, known for being the founder of Amazon. There’s Blue Origin as well, and of course, the personal drama. His high-profile divorce from Mackenzie Scott that made her a billionaire is probably something a lot of people are aware off. And then there’s Bezos’ recent lavish Venice wedding to journalist Lauren Sánchez. Still, if most people had to say just one thing about Bezos, Amazon be the first choice.
But every day, it seems like Bezos is less and less entangled with the e-commerce giant he built. At this point, his ownership stake in Amazon is less than 10%, with the founder disclosing this year that he holds 9.6% of the company’s outstanding shares. This comes after the billionaire has unloaded more than 100 million shares in the past year alone.
Related: How do Jeff Bezos’s kids feel about Lauren Sanchez?
A year ago, Bezos owned 10.1% of those shares. In 1997, when the company went public, he owned 43%.
He’s not the only one selling. His ex-wife, Mackenzie Scott, has also reportedly cut her own stake in Amazon by about 42%, or $12.6 billion, over the past year. She now holds 81.1 million shares of the company, down 58 million from this time last year, according to Bloomberg. That means she owns about 4% of the company.
Bezo’s net worth still sits somewhere over $220 billion dollars. Scott, meanwhile, is reportedly worth $32.5 billion. She has donated over $19 billion dollars since her 2019 divorce from Bezos and has wowed to donate most of her fortune during her life.
All these business decisions by Bezos come amid reports that legal battle he and his new wife have been fighting with her estranged brother, Michael Sánchez is not over yet. Page Six reported that their legal team filed a motion in California Superior Court demanding that Michael Sánchez pay $182,374 in attorney’s fees and $8,182 in legal costs, “incurred in connection with (1) her successful Special Motion to Strike, and (2) this Motion for Attorney’s Fees and Costs.”
What is the dispute even about? Well, basically, an affair. Reports that Bezos and Sánchez were having an affair first surfaced while she was still married to Patrick Whitesell. The relationship reportedly started while Bezos was still married to Scott. The reports weren’t just words, there were also X-rated photos from their private texts, which were at the time blamed on Sánchez’s brother.
He has denied all charges and called his sister and Bezos “liars and cheaters.” He went on to sue them for defamation, but lost. After the Los Angeles County Superior Court ruled in Bezos’ favor he asked for legal fees to be covered by Michael Sánchez.
Considering his vast fortune and his numerous endeavors outside of the company that made his famous, this is clearly not about Bezos needing the money or being unable to pay his attorneys, but sending a message. He might be divesting of a lot of his Amazon stock, but Bezos is still a very powerful and rich man.
