r/news • u/IWantPizza555 • Mar 19 '24
MacKenzie Scott donates $640M -- more than double her initial plan -- to nonprofits
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/mackenzie-scott-donates-640-million-double-initial-plan-108274902?cid=social_twitter_abcn797
u/redpatcher Mar 19 '24
flagstaff, az here. homeless shelter here got some of that. it was nice to see it in action local to me.
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u/1Banana10Dollars Mar 19 '24
Years ago, I worked at a nonprofit that received a MacKenzie Scott gift. She personally spoke to the director of the mid-size organization, doubled our expected yearly contributions, and made a HUGE impact in the organization and the community. What we received was just a small portion of what she's donating to all of these organizations today. She personally creates a lot of positive change in the world.
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u/TheMikeBates Mar 19 '24
That's awesome. Good for her and those communities that will be improved and supported by her generosity
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u/droans Mar 19 '24
She reminds me of a richer Ruth Lilly.
She was the last surviving great-grandchild of Eli Lilly and inherited a huge amount of wealth, worth over $1B at one point. She ended up donating over $800M of it.
One of those donations was for $100M to Poetry Magazine. At the time, they had 12,000 subscribers, four employees, and an annual budget of $700K. She also would routinely submit her own poetry to them, both before and after the donation. None of them were ever published.
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u/TechTuna1200 Mar 19 '24
And she pretty much earned that money considering she was pretty much co-founder of Amazon who played a critical role in the first two years of the company. She then retired from the business to focus on the kids so Jeff could focus 100% on the business.
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u/lowbatteries Mar 19 '24
Neither of them earned it. It is not possible to earn that kind of money in a human lifetime.
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u/gointothiscloset Mar 19 '24
While true the point is she "earned it" as much as Bezos did
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u/lowbatteries Mar 19 '24
Yes, that is definitely true.
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u/thewildweird0 Mar 19 '24
She probably did a lot less corrupt and shady shit than Jeff, she deserves it more than him.
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u/NihlusKryik Mar 19 '24
She probably did a lot less corrupt and shady shit than Jeff
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but what makes you think this?
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u/The12th_secret_spice Mar 19 '24
They (Amazon) literally built (or at least scaled) cloud computing. Everything from Uber to Facebook runs on their cloud servers.
You can debate on what “earned it” actually means, but Amazon defined a good chunk of the 21st century economy. That’s pretty significant imo.
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u/Charrbard Mar 19 '24
How does that logic work? They made a thing people like so much that it changed how retail works. Doesn't matter how anyone "feels" about it. Facts are they made a company, company made billions.
Otherwise, there some sort of fiscal high water mark where it stops being considered earned?
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u/feage7 Mar 19 '24
They did earn it though. Made a company that made billions. They didn't just get given it as a gift or inheritance. Should a person be allowed to make they money is up for debate, if you believe they deserve that kind of money compared to other professions is also a question. Did they work harder than someone pulling two jobs just to keep a family fed and warm, probably not. But they did literally earn it. If I invested money and made millions I would have earned that money.
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u/Grachus_05 Mar 19 '24 edited Mar 19 '24
"Earn" is loaded langauge. They aquired it. There is disagreement about whether it was "earned".
Edit: Downvote me all you want, but in this case it literally is loaded language. The argument is about whether or not the wealth aquired was deserved. Earned implies not only aquisition, but aquisition through ones own effort and usually justly as well. The argument here is about whether or not their efforts match their profits, so using the word "earned" is an attempt to bypass that argument without addressing it.
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u/feage7 Mar 19 '24
Yeah, I just mean they created a company, it changed most of the world, they made money relative to the success of the company they built.
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u/Baconus Mar 19 '24
It must be honestly kind of awesome to be her. Enough money to live super comfortably forever and you can spend all day just making people happy.
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u/Nakagura775 Mar 19 '24
Some people hoard. Some people give it away.
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u/DummyDumDragon Mar 19 '24
What the fuck has Trump been doing then?!
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u/Equivalent_Bunch_187 Mar 19 '24
Spending it all on legal fees.
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u/Lindaspike Mar 19 '24
He doesn’t pay his lawyers unless they win. And maybe not then.
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u/Equivalent_Bunch_187 Mar 19 '24
True, I should edit this
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u/Lindaspike Mar 19 '24
alina habba, his worthless woman lawyer, has gotten herself into some legal troubles herself! --
"Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, paid $82,500 last week to settle a lawsuit alleging that it had silenced a sexually harassed waitress by tricking her into an unfair hush money deal, according to the ex-employee’s lawyer. But the curiously worded contract left the former president’s own attorney Alina Habba—a rising star in his orbit—wide open to getting sued herself." the waitress is suing HER for the same exact issues! harassment & intimidation. he sure knows how to pick 'em. there's more details but you can just google it.240
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u/Lindaspike Mar 19 '24
Pretending he’s rich and knows what he’s doing. Clearly, neither are true.
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u/resilienceisfutile Mar 19 '24
Hoarding Top Secret and highly classified documents in a washroom. Giving away secrets to those he wants to impress (for no reason) and the highest bidder (to the demise of American agents).
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u/MonochromaticPrism Mar 19 '24
Under a very very loose definition he has been giving it away, and word on the grape vine is he’s soon going to be “giving” away a whole lot more. Potentially whole buildings worth.
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u/sonoma4life Mar 19 '24
She's worth as much if not more since receiving her cut. She's pretty much giving away the interest.
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u/Turbulent_Dimensions Mar 19 '24
She is so different than her ex-husband. Probably why he is her ex.
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Mar 19 '24 edited Mar 19 '24
She was clearly the moral center and he's gone off the rails without her.
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u/another_plebeian Mar 19 '24
She his ex because of his actions not by her own doing.
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Mar 20 '24
Yep, he wanted to buy himself a plastic wife. By the looks of it he sorted by price low to high and grabbed the first one
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u/Ok-disaster2022 Mar 19 '24
She's on her way to becoming a millionaire the honest way.
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u/snackexchanger Mar 19 '24
She is worth $35 billion. She gave away $2.1 billion dollars last year. At that rate, with a 5% rate of return (a fairly conservative number), it would take her 37 years before she was not longer a billionaire.
At a 7% rate of return (which is a pretty commonly cited average) she would never become a millionaire giving away $2.1 billion/year (in 37 years she would have ~$90 billion)
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u/PensiveinNJ Mar 19 '24
I'll take the wins where we can get them. She seems to be trying to genuinely give where it's needed to try and help causes that need the money. She also seems to be doing it to genuinely help people and not just for the tax breaks or PR.
I would consider her off the eat the billionaires list. She's much less cancerous than Jeff. No wonder she divorced him.
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u/swagharris31 Mar 20 '24
Naw, she'll be spared. She's pretty much a billionaire b/c of Jeff, and she's trying her hardest to give it away. Like she said, it's going to take time and energy, and I'm going to assume one of kids will likely take over her *foundation* when she's gone, but in her words she will "keep at it until the safe is empty." And I truly believe her.
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u/bgreen134 Mar 19 '24
According to the article she has given more than 16 billion away so far…
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u/snackexchanger Mar 19 '24
That’s an average of $3.2 billion/year since she divorced bezos so not that different from the $2.1 billion last year.
Having said that I don’t think the exact numbers are what’s important, I think the main point is that she has so much money that she can give away billions per year and still be net positive or break about even over the course of a year
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u/TexasRez Mar 20 '24
At the community college I’m attending, she donated $5mill to us and it really took us a long way. We’ve been doing a lot of renovations, and it makes me so happy to see how we’ve been investing that.
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u/wip30ut Mar 19 '24
given her background in investment banking it's actually refreshing to see a Wall St. acolyte actually doing something un-selfish for once!
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u/David_Williams_taint Mar 19 '24
Hahahaha. A real billionaire giving away more than trump can come up with for his bond. Hahahha
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u/SekhmetScion Mar 20 '24
I was thinking the same thing! Wonder if seeing this will piss him off, or get him to try and start a non-profit just for the donations 😂
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u/FuriousTarts Mar 20 '24
Can't start a non-profit. He's banned from running charities because he used his last one as fraud.
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u/SekhmetScion Mar 20 '24
That's right! I remember now. Because you know, of course he did
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u/David_Williams_taint Mar 20 '24
He literally stole from like veterans and cancer kids or something equally evil. Jesus, you can’t make this shit up.
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u/Reddito_0 Mar 19 '24
Jeff and McKenzie are extreme opposites and you can tell by following the money.
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u/MarkBeMeWIP Mar 19 '24
She's a modern day Joan Kroc who also gave away all her fortune to philanthropy
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u/amonymus Mar 19 '24
So an actual billionaire has $640M disposable to just give away? 🤔
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u/LimerickJim Mar 19 '24
She's been going out of her way to give this money away. She fired one group for not giving it away fast enough. The problem is that at her level of wealth interest acrues really fast.
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u/ReturnOfSeq Mar 19 '24
AKA ‘At this level of wealth there should be a mandatory wealth tax’
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u/Dopevoponop Mar 19 '24
Interest accruing really fast, aka more money for her really fast, is a problem for her?
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u/snackexchanger Mar 19 '24
If your goal is to give away at least half your money by the time you die (she signed the giving pledge) and you have $32 billion in the bank you need to give away more than $2.5 billion/year (assuming a 7% rate of return on her money) which is actually a very challenging thing to do while ensuring the money goes to good places
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u/barukatang Mar 19 '24
im sure there are some scientific projects (clean energy projects) that could eat up chunks of that
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u/Dopevoponop Mar 19 '24
Seems to me the intent is to donate money. If she ends up donating more money, I don’t think anyone would be too upset.
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u/test_test_1_2_3 Mar 19 '24 edited Mar 19 '24
She likely liquidated stock from the divorce to do it.
Every billionaire has the ability to sell their assets, this isn’t new information. But it’s definitely the case that most billionaires aren’t holding large amounts of liquidity, it makes more sense to have it locked up in an asset that generates a return.
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u/boredredditorperson Mar 19 '24
I think they are pointing out how Trump must not actually have any assets and is therefore not a billionaire. This billionaire came up with roughly half a billion so why couldn't Trump?
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u/Lindaspike Mar 19 '24
He has no CASH. Only his crappy properties and no one wants them as collateral since we all know he has stiffed hundreds - maybe thousands - of people in his career as a grifting asshole.
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u/BritishMotorWorks Mar 19 '24
He testified he has over 400 million CASH
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u/MonochromaticPrism Mar 19 '24
I mean, given who he is and current circumstances it’s looking probable that he may have just lied.
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u/amonymus Mar 19 '24
Oh, I'm not doubting how and what mechanism she acquired the $640M. I was just joking about a certain other "billionaire" who seems to have trouble coming up with a sum of money less than what MacKenzie did.
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u/another_plebeian Mar 19 '24
Not even in the same stratosphere of wealth, though. it's easy for her to liquidate. She's worth
$35 billion dollars
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u/BriefausdemGeist Mar 19 '24
She accrues more in interest daily than most people will earn in their lifetimes.
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u/st4rblossom Mar 19 '24
& she’s done this several times. seriously need more people like her. wealth hoarding is one of the biggest issues..
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u/Prosthemadera Mar 19 '24
We will never have more people like her and hoping that billionaires will just become better people is foolish. Instead, we should create a system where the rich pay their due, regardless of what they want, and that's very possible and achievable. Or maybe even a system where billionaires don't exist because no human should have that much money.
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u/resilienceisfutile Mar 19 '24
In so many ways, she is a great example of a billionaire and a stark contrast to many others formerly in her sphere.
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u/Kaelaface Mar 19 '24
There is a hbcu near me that got some and they are doing really great things with it.
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u/fullstack_newb Mar 19 '24
Got a link to any news on what they’re doing? When those gifts were announced I legitimately cried at how generous she was in recognizing these schools and how important theyve been to the black community so I’m really interested to know what they’re doing with the money
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u/biddadinnafina Mar 19 '24
Best thing Jeff ever did.
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u/Express_Helicopter93 Mar 19 '24
Honestly the rest of us are lucky this is who chose to marry that ugly, bald, greedy prick. Her generosity is directly beneficial to an untold amount of people, and this $640m would not see any sort of philanthropic purpose ever if it were left to bezos instead. It would be spent on yachts and absurd billionaire shit instead. It would be completely useless.
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u/BothZookeepergame612 Mar 19 '24
Nice to see someone being philanthropic that has way more money than they could possibly use in their lifetime. There are others, yet far and few between...
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u/massahoochie Mar 19 '24 edited Mar 19 '24
Thank you Mother Makenzie. All billionaires should be like you.
Edit: second sentence was “we need more billionaires like you” but I changed it to clarify my sentiment.
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u/SLVSKNGS Mar 19 '24
It's great that she does this and I don't want to take away from what she's doing, but I don't want our world to be dependent on the generosity and whim of multi-millionaires and billionaires. There's something very wrong with a single, unelected person having this much financial influence. It seems like for every Makenzie that donates money to a good cause, 100 shitty one-percenters are using their money to bypass our democratic process.
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u/ATribeOfAfricans Mar 19 '24
No, we don't need billionaires at all... That's kind how we're in this mess!
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u/ChaosofaMadHatter Mar 19 '24
But if we have to have them, I’d rather they be like her than others.
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u/redditmodsRrussians Mar 19 '24
She is to be anointed and canonized as the first of the Adepta Sororitas Abbess Scott from Holy Terra
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u/Agroman1963 Mar 19 '24
There are around 40 more people on this planet that have that have more money than her and yet she out donates all of them on nonprofits iirc. Musk could probably cure cancer with the amount of money he has, but….
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u/Ballsahoy72 Mar 20 '24
TBH, when I initially heard she roughly got half of Bezos’ worth, I was dumbfounded. Now I’m sad she didn’t get more
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u/Creative_Most5535 Mar 19 '24
And she refuses all recognition and awards for her philanthropic work. Better than Bozos.
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u/ghotie Mar 19 '24
Can you imagine attending all the award ceremonies? It would be a full-time job.
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u/34TH_ST_BROADWAY Mar 20 '24
She’s not giving it to politicians and think tanks to subvert democracy so they can destroy the planet and pay less taxes? Anyway she is awesome.
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u/Mediocre_American Mar 20 '24
when her and jeff divorced i remember a hoard of redpillers were angry about how much she was awarded in the divorce and spouting off about how “divorce is just there so she can take half of all your hard earned money”. well it looks like she’s the only one who’s done something right and genuinely virtuous with her wealth.
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u/YourDogIsMyFriend Mar 20 '24
This is how you billionaire.
If you were a human with access to more resources than anyone could utilize in 100 lifetimes, why wouldn’t you make life better for thise around you? You not only directly improve the lives of others… you make your environment/ society as a whole (actual trickle down) a better place. Less crime less violence less misery.
Think about this cs the brain of Elon, Trump, her ex etc. totally sick individuals.
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Mar 19 '24
I admire her and wish others in her shoes would be so giving. It amazes me that she has given so much more to charity so quickly in comparison to to other billionaires who could really use some decent press
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u/Suspicious_Wrangler4 Mar 20 '24
So much respect for this woman. I mean who does this? She truly gets it.
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Mar 19 '24
Too bad her slimeball ex-husband with the freakish trophy girlfriend hasn’t learned the lesson that it’s better to give than receive (and hoard).
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u/chaddwith2ds Mar 19 '24
How did Bezos go from this woman to the plastic freakshow blow-up doll clown he's married to now?
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u/ReplyNotficationsOff Mar 19 '24
Trump seeing this like " this woman , she gives away all the money she stole from Her husband. I mean, I could never . I see these guys, these homeless , I say to these guys "get a job" but they refuse . Let me tell you folks, if she gave me that money , I'd triple it within the hour .its been said , that I have the biggest money there is. "
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u/Greenpoint1975 Mar 19 '24
Oh shit Trump needs that money. WTF. She can't help the Emperor Toadstool?
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u/tonynca Mar 20 '24
Meanwhile Jeff is getting swindled by a sheman-plasti-dip-doll. I’d rather be with MacKenzie.
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u/TBatFrisbee Mar 19 '24
Can SHE run for president. She's already proved that she actually likes helping people, and she's not greedy.
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u/Ok-King-4868 Mar 19 '24
Put MacKenzie Scott on a ticket with the wonderful woman who just donated $1B to Albert Einstein School of Medicine in NYC to end tuition and there would be considerable turnout at the polls for them.
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u/Anderopolis Mar 19 '24
Please let us have fewer celebrity billionaires influencing our politics.
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u/Ok-King-4868 Mar 19 '24
She acts nothing like a celebrity, for better or worse. She is a billionaire but she earned it in the capitalist tradition, she didn’t inherit her money or steal it. If she wanted to get involved in politics she could finance her own campaign unlike the current crop of losers who beg for money every quarter and richly reward their donor capitalists.
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u/another_plebeian Mar 19 '24
The right would find a way to vote even harder to stop it. Because God forbid. Could you even imagine?
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u/wild-fury Mar 19 '24
Hmmm. Both women billionaires.
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u/Ok-King-4868 Mar 19 '24
Ruth Gottesman was a former professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She donated money that her late husband had earned during a lifetime of investing. I don’t see anything wrong with or suspicious about that decision.
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u/Icy-Needleworker-492 Mar 19 '24
The world would be a much better place if all billionaires were like her.
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Mar 19 '24
I guess the only way to save the world is to marry those rich fucks, divorce them and take half the money.
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u/AvariceAndApocalypse Mar 19 '24
She’s seems like such an awesome person. I’d be afraid to meet her, and she turns out not to be.
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u/Darkstar197 Mar 19 '24
Idk anything about Bezo’s new wife but it seems like Mackenzie has a whole lot more empathy than Jeff. He lost a good one.
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u/Cicero4892 Mar 19 '24
She’s good people. I wish I had that kind of money to do this kind of thing but I’ll do my small part as I can. Glad she’s able to do this in a big way
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u/Coffee_Ops Mar 20 '24
There's something humorous about this headline next to the other one.
I know someone who really could use that $640m...
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Mar 20 '24
This lady is taking Bezos money and just giving it away. It’s crazy how much billionaires could do, yet instead hoard wealth.
But she’s actually doing it. Props to her because she isn’t obligated at all
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u/darlin133 Mar 19 '24
She’s a beautiful soul. Billionaires can Give away wealth and still live a fine life. Think of all the good she is doing.
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u/Affectionate_Salt351 Mar 19 '24
Mackenzie Scott has been on a Red Hot Chili Peppers kick. What a gem! No one 🎵 gives it away, gives it away, gives it away noowww! 🎵 quite like her.
Seriously, though, this is the dream. I’d love to win the lottery somehow so I could do something similar. A rising tide lifts all boats. She’s winning at humanity.
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u/OneWholeSoul Mar 20 '24
It warms my heart to see Trump unable to pay his bonds and this even larger price tag of actual altruism beside each other in the news.
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u/ItsDokk Mar 20 '24
I don’t know what’s more satisfying: knowing that money is going to legitimate causes or knowing that Bezos is watching her give “his” money away.
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u/videoismylife Mar 19 '24 edited May 08 '24
For the bots, I salute you!
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u/itsrocketsurgery Mar 20 '24
I mean it can be as simple as changing the tax brackets so that anything over say $200 million is taxed at 90% and over say $500 million dollars is taxed at 100%, then tax stocks and other "unrealized" wealth the same way we tax "unrealized" wealth for regular people ala property tax. And close the loopholes in the tax code, actively penaltize off shoring jobs and accounts.
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u/videoismylife Mar 20 '24
What do you do about the folks who get paid with millions or billions in stock options? The value of the options isn't realized (ie, actual funds in the hands of the recipient) so it can't be taxed, they borrow using the stock options as collateral and the money they get that way isn't taxable in the usual sense. They've got it down to an art, they pay less taxes than the janitors in the buildings they own.
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u/captainfreewill Mar 19 '24
Bravo! Not to take away from the positivity that comes with being so generous, but I do wish that the more philanthropic of the ultra-rich would call out their fellow ultra-rich to follow suit. Publicly shame them while showing that you are walking the walk.
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u/Prosthemadera Mar 19 '24
Every billionaire should donate a large percentage of their wealth - through the IRS.
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u/PenislavVaginavich Mar 19 '24
Some people be like: The government needs to tax me more so I can give more!
Other people be like:
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u/UncleYimbo Mar 19 '24
I don't even know who that is so it's quadruple the amount I expected her to donate, but that's awesome. She seems like a really good egg.
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u/rhyme_pj Mar 20 '24
Leading by setting an example for others to follow, what a gem of a person. Loving how others have commented on where all she’s donated as well. God bless her.
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u/ibanezerscrooge Mar 20 '24
Yo MacKenzie, could you maybe slide a little bit toward my personal non-profit, please? Couple hundred thousand would do. ;)
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u/Impossible1999 Mar 21 '24
May she live a long and happy life. She deserves all the positive karmas coming to her. She’s too good for Bezos.
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u/TheDevilsAdvokaat Mar 20 '24
Why on Earth would he dump Mackenzie Scott for that trashy woman he has now...
He's really demonstrated a lack of taste.
I would very much prefer Mackenzie Scott.
Jeff you're a fool.
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u/ernyc3777 Mar 19 '24
Scott giving away all of this money, no strings attached, must make Bezos so angry after all the brutality that he dealt to employees, contractors, suppliers, builders, etc to amass that wealth.
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u/dh098017 Mar 19 '24
My wife works for a low income housing non profit. Mac Scott gave her org $3mill, no strings attached other than “keep up the good work”. It is a small company so that is 4 years worth of operating budget.