Jeff Bezos may be one of the world’s most famous billionaires, but the business tycoon — who founded Amazon, owns The Washington Post and entered the tourist space race with his astronautics company Blue Origin — also plays a less headline-making role in life: father of four.
The wildly successful entrepreneur, 61, who is rumored to be walking down the aisle with fiancée Lauren Sánchez at a star-studded Italian wedding, welcomed all four of his kids with his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott.
The former couple were married in 1993 and announced their split in 2019.
Unlike their famous dad, Bezos’ kids prefer to stay out of the limelight.
Read on to learn more about the rarely seen members of Bezos’ family.
Ex-wife MacKenzie Scott is the mother of his children
Bezos, 61, shares three sons and one daughter with ex-wife MacKenzie Scott. He and the novelist-turned-philanthropist met in 1992, when they both worked for the same investment management firm, D. E. Shaw & Co.
In 1993, just one year before Bezos launched Amazon, the two wed. The couple were together for 25 years before parting ways and finalizing their divorce in 2019.
In a joint statement announcing the news of their split, the pair stressed that they had no regrets about their time together.
“If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again,” the statement read.
His oldest son is named after him
Bezos and Scott started their family in 2000 with the birth of their son Preston. As for the name they chose for their firstborn, it’s one that runs deep in the Bezos family.
Not only was Preston the middle name of Bezos’ great-grandfather and grandfather, but it’s also the middle name of the former Amazon CEO himself.
He’s a very private patriarch
Bezos and Scott have two more sons as well as one daughter they adopted in China. But unlike their big brother Preston, little is known about them.
Bezos has never publicly revealed the names or birth dates of his three younger kids.
In 2016, Bezos, Scott and all four of their children hit the red carpet at Comic-Con International in San Diego, California, for the big-screen premiere of “Star Trek Beyond.”
Mornings are his family time
Though Bezos is a busy man, he likes to slow-roll into his day, taking time to appreciate the early morning hours and company of his children.
“I like to putter in the mornings,” he said at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., CNBC reported in 2018. “I like to read the newspaper, I like to have coffee, I like to have breakfast with my kids before they go to school. My puttering time is very important to me.”
Scott put her writing career on hold to raise kids
Scott, who has published two novels, “The Testing of Luther Albright” (2005) and “Traps” (2013), hit the pause button on her writing career to focus on raising her and Bezos’ children.
“Writing is such a ‘pretend’ profession,” Scott told Vogue in 2013. “Nobody is counting on you at all. You can’t ‘pretend’ to be a lawyer or a teacher. It takes a lot of grit to continue.
“Kids, on the other hand, have an urgent need to be taken care of,” she continued. “After the third child, I knew I couldn’t be the kind of parent I wanted to be and continue writing. Those years were just too busy.”
Bezos and Scott encouraged their kids to be self-reliant
Bezos and Scott encouraged their kids to be self-reliant and resourceful, the businessman revealed when he spoke on a SummitLA panel in November 2017, according to CNBC.
The pair’s children, he said, were using knives by age 4 and power tools by ages 7 or 8.
Scott’s reasoning, Bezos added jokingly, was that she “would much rather have a kid with nine fingers than a resourceless kid,” which he agreed was a “fantastic attitude about life.”
The pair modeled their parenting style on Bezos’ own upbringing, which included spending time on his grandfather’s ranch, where he learned how to fix heavy machinery, take care of cattle and even helped his grandfather build a house.
“He would take on major projects that he didn’t know how to do and then figure out how to do them,” recalled Bezos. “As a kid, I got to see him solve all these problems and be a real problem-solver.”
The former couple committed to co-parenting after their 2019 split
Though Bezos and Scott parted ways in 2019, they remained committed to co-parenting their kids 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,” Bezos wrote on Twitter when he announced the end of the couple’s marriage.
“Though the labels might be different, we remain a family, and we remain cherished friends,” he added.
Bezos’ brood is about to get bigger
The father of four will soon become a stepfather to three more.
In May 2023, Bezos proposed to his girlfriend, Emmy-winning journalist Lauren Sánchez.
When the two tie the knot, his family will include Sánchez’s children: son Nikko Gonzalez, 24, whom she welcomed with ex-boyfriend, retired NFL star Tony Gonzalez, as well son Evan Whitesell, 18, and daughter Ella Whitesell, 17, whom she shares with ex-husband Patrick Whitesell.
While Bezos remains mostly mum about his own kids, his 55-year-old fiancée has a more open approach with hers, sharing occasional photos and sweet sentiments on social media.
In honor of Mother’s Day 2024, she took to Instagram to post a throwback pic of the trio, writing, “Thank you, Nikko Evan and Ella for making me a mom.”
‘The Brady Bunch’
Sánchez opened up about life behind-the-scenes with Bezos and the couple’s combined seven kids when she spoke to WSJ Magazine for a profile published in January 2023.
“On a typical Saturday, we hang out, we have dinner with the kids, which is always fun because you never know where the conversation is going to go with this many kids,” she said.
She added jokingly of her and Bezos’ blended family, “We are the Brady Bunch!”
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