Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced in a Wednesday morning tweet he and his wife, MacKenzie, are getting divorced after 25 years of marriage.
“We want to make people aware of a development in our lives. As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends,” Bezos said in a message signed by both of them.
The announcement comes just days before Bezos is set to celebrate his 55th birthday. Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos have four children together.
MacKenzie Bezos, a novelist, has often been pointed to as a supporter of her husband’s move into e-commerce in the early-90s. Jeff Bezos, following Amazon’s expansion from an online bookstore to a labyrinth spanning cloud computing, entertainment and groceries, has jumped to the top of the list of world’s richest men and women; Forbes pegged his fortune at $160 billion back in October, and currently has him atop its billionaires list with a net worth of $112 billion.
The couple committed $2 billion to launching the Day One Fund last year, aiming to help homeless families and create preschools in lower-income neighborhoods. Their Wednesday announcement suggested they’ll continue working on the charity together: “We’ve had such a great life together as a married couple, and we also see wonderful futures ahead, as parents, friends, partners in ventures and projects, and as individuals pursuing ventures and adventures.”
The announcement had little impact on Amazon’s stock price, which was up 0.24 percent in early-morning trading to $1,660 per share.
You can read the full statement below:
We want to make people aware of a development in our lives. As our family and close friends know, after a long period of loving exploration and trial separation, we have decided to divorce and continue our shared lives as friends. We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other and deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married to each other. If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again. We’ve had such a great life together as a married couple, and we also see wonderful futures ahead, as parents, friends, partners in ventures and projects, and as individuals pursuing ventures and adventures. Though the labels might be different, we remain a family, and we remain cherished friends. Jeff & MacKenzie.
In the days following the Bezos’ announcement, the National Enquirer published a series of articles saying the couple had been separated for months and the Amazon CEO had been having an affair with news anchor and former “Good Day L.A.” co-host, Lauren Sanchez.
Referencing the National Enquirer expose, Donald Trump, who has expressed great animosity to Bezos in the past, threw salt on the wound in a tweet Sunday, writing, “So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post. Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!”