Every day, Amazon ships out tens of millions of packages emblazoned with its famous smiling logo. But it seems there’s not much to grin about in the household of CEO Jeff Bezos these days. Bezos announced today that after a lengthy trial separation, he and wife Mackenzie Bezos have decided to file for divorce. “We want to make people aware of a development in our lives,” Bezos tweeted Wednesday morning. “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,” he added. With a net worth of $137.4 billion, Bezos is the world’s richest man. It’s unclear if the couple had a prenuptial agreement, but since most of Bezos’ wealth is tied up in the massive online retailer he founded, it’s unlikely that Mackenzie will become the world’s richest divorcee. UPDATE: It is now being rumored that Bezos carried on an affair last year with former So You Think You Can Dance host Lauren Sanchez. The couple met at the New York hedge fund D.E. Shaw, where Bezos, the company’s vice president hired Mackenzie for a job. Just 23 at the time, Mackenzie initiated the relationship by asking her new boss out to lunch. “My office was next door to his, and all day long I listened to that fabulous laugh,” she told Vogue in a 2013 interview. “How could you not fall in love with that laugh?” Three months later the couple was engaged, and three months after that, in 1993, Jeff and Mackenzie tied the knot. “I think my wife is resourceful, smart, brainy, and hot, but I had the good fortune of having seen her resume before I met her, so I knew exactly what her SATs were,” gushed about Mackenzie in the same interview. When Jeff made the cross-country trip to start a Seattle-based small online bookstore in 1994, Mackenzie became one of his first employees. “To me, watching your spouse, somebody that you love, have an adventure — what is better than that?” she later told CBS. In addition to her successes in the business world, Mackenzie is an acclaimed author, having penned two award-winning novels, The Testing of Luther Albright and Traps . In his statement, Jeff seemed to imply that he and Mackenzie would continue working 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 CEO wrote. “ Though the labels might be different, we remain a family, and we remain cherished friends.” We wish Jeff and Mackenzie all the best on their divergent paths forward.
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Jeff Bezos: Amazon CEO Announces Split From Wife of 25 Years in Twitter Statement
