Jeff Bezos’ $137 Billion Divorce Could be the Most Expensive in History

Money surely doesn’t make everything perfect in people’s lives, because even the richest man in the entire world couldn’t buy eternal love and happiness for his own marriage. After over two decades, Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos announced that they will be filing for a divorce. On his official Twitter account, the post said how they both want to continue their lives as friends.

Rumor has it that Jeff has been cheating on his wife for quite some time now with a news anchor. However, the public isn’t giving the cause of their separation that much attention. What everyone has been wondering about is if this will affect Amazon, especially with the possibility that this could be the most expensive divorce that will ever happen in history.

Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos were together for 25 years

Most Expensive Divorce in History

Wall Street analysts believe that this divorce could shake up the world wealth ranking. Jeff has a net worth of $137 billion, making him the current holder of the richest man record. If the two splits their fortune fairly, Mackenzie could be the world’s richest woman with $69 billion.

According to some high-profile divorce attorneys, the Amazon founder will most likely decide on what is best for his family as well as their growing their fortune. The Bezos family lives in Washington, and it is known to be a community property state, wherein the wealth between two people who are married may be split into two.

Amazon was founded just a year after they got married, so unless they signed a pre-nuptial agreement, Mackenzie is entitled to have half of the company as well as half of her husband’s other assets. However, experts say that the Amazon founder would have to pledge or even sell some of his shares to be able to fund this settlement.

This could possibly dilute his ownership, which could lead to him losing full control of the company. Records show that Bezos only owns less than 16 percent shares of the company at the moment. TMZ recently reported that the couple didn’t have a prenup since it didn’t seem necessary back then.

Why Prenups are Important

Pre-nuptial agreements are very famous amongst celebrities and wealthy families who want to protect their fortune. The Bezoses weren’t exactly a wealthy family two decades ago when they got married, so it is most likely that they didn’t have the agreement, however, the report has yet to be confirmed by the Bezoses’ legal team.

Marital lawyers also say that billionaire who owns a fortune that is tied to their company’s stock may have a hard time with issues like this. Their assets are hard to value since it’s also hard to liquidate. This could lead to a divorce that may take years to process, which could always end up affecting Amazon as a whole, together with its stocks and shares.

Legal experts and analysts even think that this divorce may affect the economy of the United States. Attorney Steve Mindel of an LA firm said in an interview with People magazine that it would take teams of lawyers to handle this divorce, such as a team of family lawyers, corporate lawyers, tax lawyers, and even real estate lawyers. More than 10 lawyers for each team must be needed just to be able to figure out how this settlement could work.

The Amazon founder reportedly cheated on his wife with Lauren Sanchez

Billions Worth Of Divorce

The process of their divorce hasn’t been made public yet, but almost everyone already speculates that this will be a record-breaking divorce in terms of how much it will cost. The most expensive divorce in history was back in 1999 between French-American businessman Alec Wildenstein and Jocelyn Wildenstein.

She managed to get $3.8 billion from the divorce, which cost more than $5 billion today. That same year, another billion-dollar divorce happened, and this time around with was between media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Maria Torv, who was a journalist at that time, and reports said that she received $1.7 billion out of it.

Murdoch moved on pretty quickly by getting married to another woman just 17 days after the divorce with Torv was finalized. In 2009, Bernie Ecclestone filed for a divorce from his wife at that time, Croatian model Slavica Radic. The settlement reportedly cost $1.2 billion, but the rumor spread that the model was the one who has to pay Ecclestone for an unknown reason.