Money can’t buy happiness: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to divorce

NEW YORK: After 25 years of their married life, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, rated the world’s wealthiest person, announced Wednesday on Twitter that he and his wife Mackenzie Bezos were divorcing following a long separation.

Without a shred of a doubt, the old maxim proved that money can’t buy you happiness.

The two published a joint statement on Wednesday on the Amazon CEO’s Twitter that could affect the world ranking of the richest man, who created the online shopping giant.

“We want to make people aware of a development in our lives,” Jeff Bezos, 54, and MacKenzie Bezos, 48, said in joint statement posted to Bezos’ Twitter feed.

“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,” the statement continued.

The Bezoses said they felt “incredibly lucky” for their 25 years together and would remain involved with each other as close friends and parents but just couldn’t bear to spend any more time.

“Having great wealth isn’t an automatic guarantee of happiness. My wife and I have enjoyed a quarter-of-a-century together, but I now wouldn’t want to spend another hour in the same room as her – not even if you offered me a trillion dollars!”

MacKenzie Bezos is the author of two books, including “The Testing of Luther Albright,” a psychological novel about the challenges facing a Sacramento, California father and his family after an earthquake.

She was one of the first employees of Amazon at its founding and in 2014 launched Bystander Revolution, an anti-bullying organisation.

The couple, who have four children, met while working at the hedge fund DE Shaw prior to Bezos’s founding of Amazon.

Jeff Bezos is rated the world’s wealthiest man by Forbes and Bloomberg, with a fortune estimated at around USD 137 billion.

Amazon this week passed Microsoft to become the world’s biggest publicly traded company by market capitalisation.

With agency inputs