MacKenzie Scott, Billionaire Philanthropist, Files for Divorce

Mr. Jewett taught at the Lakeside School, the prestigious Seattle private school attended by the Bezos children, where he was popular among students and fellow teachers alike.

“He’s earnest, not very edgy,” said Angela Loihl, who met Mr. Jewett through a mutual friend. Ms. Loihl, who spent weeks in 2014 with Mr. Jewett driving in a small-motored car from London to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, recalled how that mutual friend had told her years later, after he married Ms. Scott, “He’s the perfect person to end up with this money to give away — no sense of greed at all.”

According to the divorce filing, the couple married in California in 2021. The news of their marriage took even Mr. Jewett’s friends and colleagues by surprise — producing a whirlwind of news coverage far beyond his expectations, as reporters even appeared on the Lakeside campus. Though he finished the term there, Mr. Jewett felt his presence on campus was a distraction.

His new wife had become arguably the most influential philanthropist in the world with an approach that emphasized huge grants — often the largest single gift a group had received — with no strings attached.

In his Giving Pledge letter published in March 2021, Mr. Jewett wrote that he was “grateful for the exceptional privilege it will be to partner in giving away assets with the potential to do so much good when shared.”

In June 2021, Ms. Scott posted about her giving on Medium, where she wrote: “Me, Dan, a constellation of researchers and administrators and advisers — we are all attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change.” Sometime in the past week, searches on the Internet Archive showed, the post was edited, and Mr. Jewett’s name removed from there as well.

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/business/mackenzie-scott-dan-jewett.html