Who Is MacKenzie Bezos? A Look At How Much Money She Will Get In Divorce From Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos

After 25 years, Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie are divorcing. The couple announced the news on Twitter Wednesday just three days shy of Bezos' 55th birthday.

The joint tweet from Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos read: "We want to make people aware of a development in our lives. 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.

"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.

“Though the labels might be different, we remain a family, and we remain cherished friends.”

The couple has four children together.

MacKenzie stands to receive a sizable settlement and support from Jeff Bezos as his wealth has been estimated at $137 billion, CNBC reported. Washington state is a community property state, meaning that wealth accrued during the marriage would be split equally between the two parties.

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon one year after marrying MacKenzie, which may make her entitled to half his fortune. She could receive as much as $66 billion based on Amazon’s value to date.

Based on the value of the anticipated settlement, Bezos may be obligated to sell or pledge shares that could dilute his ownership and management of the e-commerce giant. He owns just under 80 million shares of the company, just under 16 percent, according to regulatory filings.

CNBC noted that divorce attorneys have said it is highly likely that MacKenzie would want Bezos to sell shares in Amazon that could dilute his control and share of the company.

"The issue will be how to value the assets with diminished control,” attorney Jeffrey Fisher, who has handled several billionaire divorces, told CNBC. "There would be an argument by the attorneys that the Amazon stake is not worth as much without Bezos in control, so that would affect any settlement.”

MacKenzie, 48, has been credited in the Amazon origin story as the one that supported Bezos move from Wall Street to e-commerce. The couple worked together at D.E. Shaw, a New York-based hedge-fund. Her father worked as a financial planner.

The San Francisco native graduated from Princeton in 1992 with an English degree, studying under famed Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison. She would go on to become a novelist.

MacKenzie, who said she began writing books at the age of 6, received acclaim for her first novel, "The Testing of Luther Albright." Wingate Packard of the Seattle Times described the plot as: "a middle-aged father who works so hard to avoid being like his father with his only child that he comes across as, well, somewhat like his father."

She would later release "Traps," a thriller about four women whose lives intersect over four days.

In a 2013 profile in Vogue, she described herself as a "lottery winner of a certain kind" but not in monetary terms.

"It makes my life wonderful in many ways, but that’s not the lottery I feel defined by. The fact that I got wonderful parents who believed in education and never doubted I could be a writer, the fact that I have a spouse I love, those are the things that define me."

MacKenzie would increase her presence in charities, starting a $2 billion initiative with her husband in September called the "Bezos Day One Fund," which was explained by the couple as "funding existing non-profits that help homeless families, and creating a network of new, non-profit, tier-one pre-schools in low-income communities."

She also started Bystander Revolution, an anti-bullying organization in 2014.

The Twitter statement from the couple suggests they will continue to work together on the charity.

Shares of Amazon gained 0.24 percent as of 12:54 p.m. ET.