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Who Are Jeff Bezos' 4 Kids? All About His Children with Ex-Wife MacKenzie Scott

Jeff Bezos, who married Lauren Sánchez on June 27, has four children with his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott

Emy LaCroix, Caroline Blair
6 min read
Shannon Finney/Getty Jeff Bezos and his son, Preston Bezos, attend the 2019 American Portrait Gala in 2019.
Shannon Finney/Getty Jeff Bezos and his son, Preston Bezos, attend the 2019 American Portrait Gala in 2019.


NEED TO KNOW

  • Jeff Bezos shares four children with his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott

  • The Amazon founder has kept his children's lives private and only shared one of their names

  • Bezos and his children made a rare public outing in 2016


While Jeff Bezos is known across the world for founding Amazon, he's also a dad to four children.

The businessman shares three sons and one daughter with his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott. The two have been divorced since 2019, and he married Lauren Sánchez, who has three children of her own, on June 27 in Venice, Italy.

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The Amazon founder has prioritized his children's privacy over the years and has only shared that his oldest son, who was born in 2000, is named Preston and that he adopted a daughter from China. However, Bezos has not revealed the names or birthdates of his three younger children.

When the kids were growing up, the entrepreneur depended on Scott, a novelist, to raise the kids full-time while he built Amazon from the ground up.

"Writing is such a 'pretend' profession," she 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. 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."

From their rare public family outing to the advice they received from their billionaire father, here's everything to know about Jeff Bezos' children.

Bezos' oldest son is named after him

Shannon Finney/Getty Jeff Bezos and his son, Preston Bezos, attend the 2019 American Portrait Gala on November 17, 2019 in Washington, DC.

Shannon Finney/Getty

Jeff Bezos and his son, Preston Bezos, attend the 2019 American Portrait Gala on November 17, 2019 in Washington, DC.

Bezos' middle name is Preston — the name he and Scott gave their oldest child.

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The moniker was passed down from Bezos' great-grandfather, Lloyd Preston Gise, to his grandfather, Lawrence Preston Gise, before him, so it's a significant nod to their family history.

His father was his role model in parenting

Bezos often speaks about how much his father, Cuban immigrant Miguel "Mike" Bezos, inspired him throughout his life. While paying tribute to him at the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Awards in May 2022, Bezos revealed how his dad serves as his role model.

"I think in every immigrant you'll find a deep optimism and a deep resilience too," he said in a video from the event. "My dad is an intense hard worker. My dad is warm and he teaches an easy smile. My brother and sister and I could not have had a better role model."

His children are extremely private

Todd Williamson/Getty Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott with their four children in 2016.
Todd Williamson/Getty Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott with their four children in 2016.

Little is known about Bezos and Scott's four kids. The executive chairman has shared few details about his family life, though he and Scott did make a rare public appearance with their children at the premiere of Star Trek Beyond in July 2016.

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All three of the pair's sons and their daughter joined them for the event, where they posed for a family photo on the red carpet.

Bezos' oldest child Preston also accompanied him to the American Portrait Gala at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in 2019, where the father-son duo smiled for a picture together.

His kids were part of his morning routine

Franziska Krug/Getty Jeff Bezos in 2018.
Franziska Krug/Getty Jeff Bezos in 2018.

Like many successful entrepreneurs, Bezos is an early riser. However, that doesn't mean he's all business first thing when he wakes up. "I like to putter in the mornings," he told the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., at an event in September 2018, according to CNBC.

"I like to read the newspaper, I like to have coffee, I like to have breakfast with my kids before they go to school," he continued. "My puttering time is very important to me."

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As for the evening, Bezos made sure to leave some time in his schedule for family chores. "I do the dishes every night," he said during a 2014 interview. "I'm pretty convinced it's the sexiest thing I do."

He urges his children to pursue their passions

Alex Wong/Getty Jeff Bezos speaking at the Air Force Association in 2018.
Alex Wong/Getty Jeff Bezos speaking at the Air Force Association in 2018.

At a 2018 gala for global nonprofit FIRST, Bezos shared the best advice he's given his kids when it comes to their careers. "Whatever you do, choose something you can bring passion to," he said.

The Amazon founder added that following your passion is advice he'd give to any young person. "That's going to make it easier for you to make that choice to work hard," he added, per CNBC.

Bezos also admitted that figuring out his own interests took longer than he thought.

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"I thought I wanted to be a scientist when I went to Princeton," he explained. "I thought I wanted to be a physicist and halfway through, I figured out I wasn't smart enough to be a physicist."

Through trial and error, however, Bezos was able to discover what he was truly passionate about. "You've gotta figure out what you love," he concluded. "And it's going to bring you great joy."

He instills a "self-efficacy" mindset in his kids

From a young age, Bezos and Scott encouraged their kids to get dirty and build things, even if it might have been a little dangerous at times. Speaking at a SummitLA panel in November 2017, the entrepreneur said he allowed his kids to use knives at age 4 and power tools by 7 or 8, according to CNBC.

Bezos explained that he grew up helping his grandfather fix things around the farm, which taught him resourcefulness — something he wanted to instill in his own children. "[My grandfather] would take on major projects that he didn't know how to do and then figure out how to do them," he said of the experience. "As a kid, I got to see him solve all these problems and be a real problem-solver."

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Scott agreed about the importance of letting their kids be self-sufficient. Bezos said she told him she "would much rather have a kid with nine fingers than a resourceless kid," something he called a "fantastic attitude about life."

He and Scott are focused on co-parenting after their divorce

Charley Gallay/Getty Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott at Amazon Prime's Emmy Celebration in September 2015.
Charley Gallay/Getty Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott at Amazon Prime's Emmy Celebration in September 2015.

When Bezos and Scott ended their 25-year marriage in January 2019, their main priority was co-parenting their kids successfully.

"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 X at the time. "Though the labels might be different, we remain a family, and we remain cherished friends."

Four months later, the pair finished divvying up their assets and finalizing the divorce.

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"Grateful to have finished the process of dissolving my marriage with Jeff with support from each other and everyone who reached out to us in kindness, and looking forward to next phase as co-parents and friends," Scott wrote on X in April 2019.

"I'm grateful for [MacKenzie's] support and for her kindness in this process and am very much looking forward to our new relationship as friends and co-parents," Bezos posted on X the same day.

Read the original article on People

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