Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife MacKenzie Scott is still worth $33 billion after giving away $10 million a day for seven years, but she once worked as a dishwasher and waitress, earning minimum wage of $4.25 an hour
Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has kept a net worth of $33 billion even after giving away about $10 million every day for the past seven years.The ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has donated more than $26 billion through 2,700 charitable gifts since 2019. Even though her current wealth makes her one of the richest people in the world, her official Amazon author biography shows a much more modest past. As a student, she worked low-paying jobs, including as a dishwasher, waitress, deli cashier, nanny, and library monitor.56-year-old Scott has spoken openly about the financial struggles she faced before becoming a billionaire. While studying at Princeton University, her money problems became so serious that her roommate, Jeannie Ringo Tarkenton, found her crying because she could no longer afford tuition. The situation was solved after Tarkenton helped her get a $1,000 loan so she could stay enrolled.
Earning a minimum wage was $4.25 an hour
After graduating from Princeton, where she worked as a research assistant for Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison, Scott moved to New York City to chase her dream of becoming a writer. To pay her rent in the early 1990s, she worked several jobs, including waitressing and making sandwiches. At the time, the federal minimum wage was $4.25 an hour, while full-time restaurant servers earned a median hourly wage of $4.80, including tips.Scott wrote letters to Morrison. They were later published by Fortune and describe how difficult it was to balance service jobs with her writing career.“I guess the only way I will find out what will not work for me in life is by trying it,” Scott wrote to her former mentor Toni Morrison.She also wrote: “I found myself with unpredictable and small chunks of time during which I either collapsed from exhaustion and frustration, or ruminated over the excruciating monotony of making and selling sandwiches, and worried about how I might pay my rent with the nickels they gave me in exchange for my ennui.”Her life changed after she joined the New York hedge fund D.E. Shaw, where she met Jeff Bezos (Jeff was making around $1.5 million to $2 million in today’s money annually). The two married and moved to Seattle to start Amazon in 1994, with Scott serving as the company’s first accountant and administrator. After their divorce in 2019, Scott received a 4 per cent stake in Amazon. The continued rise in the company’s share price has helped preserve her wealth, allowing her net worth to increase by more than $2 billion this year alone to between $33 billion and $43.8 billion, depending on market estimates, even after selling more than half of her original stake.
Scott’s philanthropy model has given away billions to charities
Through her charitable platform, Yield Giving, launched in 2022, Scott gives away well over $4 billion each year on average. Instead of using the strict oversight common among many major donors, she provides unrestricted grants that allow organisations to decide for themselves how the money should be spent.In 2025, her unrestricted donations sent hundreds of millions of dollars to educational institutions and cultural preservation groups. Her biggest gifts included $80 million to Howard University, $70 million to the United Negro College Fund, $50 million to Virginia State University, and $42 million to Alcorn State University. She also gave $60 million to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and $40 million to the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.Many recipient organisations have praised the freedom that comes with Scott’s donations, but her approach has also faced backlash from some fellow tech billionaires. Garry Tan, chief executive of startup accelerator Y Combinator, publicly criticised the lack of oversight attached to the grants.“MacKenzie Scott has given away $26B faster than anyone in history — with no oversight, and no accountability for the chaos that follows,” Tan wrote in a post on X.He added: “This is not stewardship. Real philanthropy requires real care and attention. Pour sugar on the floor? You get ants.”Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has also agreed with Tan’s criticism, replying to the post with a single word: “Yup”.Despite criticism from some of the biggest and wealthiest figures, Scott’s daily giving is greater than the combined charitable donations of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, and Larry Ellison.
