Per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Jeff Bezos' ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, became the world's richest woman on Monday, with a net worth of $66.4 billion.
The 50-year-old former wife of the Amazon founder overtook L’Oreal SA heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers for the first time to become the world’s 12th richest person.
This reshuffling at the top of the US billionaires list was purportedly due to a pandemic-induced tech stock surge, according to NBC News.
Last week, per the publication, Tesla CEO Elon Musk overtook Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to become the third-richest man in the world, after Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown began back in March, the combined US billionaire's wealth has grown by nearly $800 billion or over 25%.
As part of her divorce, novelist and philanthropist Scott, who was married to Bezos for 25 years, received a 4% stake in Amazon, whose stock has been growing due to the increase in online sales and home deliveries.
Shares have risen from nearly $2,000 to $3,500 since the start of the year.
Last year, a month after her divorce from Bezos, Scott signed the Giving Pledge - a campaign founded by fellow billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet - where she promised to donate at least half of her personal wealth to philanthropic causes during her lifetime.
"Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support from each other and everyone who reached out to us in kindness, and looking forward to next phase as co-parents and friends," Scott wrote on Twitter at the time. "Happy to be giving all of my interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75 % of our Amazon stock plus voting control of my shares to support his continued contributions with the teams of these incredible companies. Excited about my own plans. Grateful for the past as I look forward to what comes next."
