Breaking bad: The costliest divorces the world has seen until now

Bill and Melinda Gates have promised to donate most of their wealth to charity, but their divorce would be the largest splitting of assets

On Tuesday, one of the most influential couple in the world and heads of Bill and Melinda Gates foundation announced that they will be filing for a divorce after 27 years of marriage. Both have promised to work together for the largest charitable organisation in the world, the news of divorce has sent flutters around the world. Even though both have promised to donate most of their wealth to The Giving Pledge, which they started with billionaire Warren Buffet in 2010, the divorce will still be the largest division of assets till date. As per Forbes, Bill Gates is the fourth richest person in the world with a net worth of $130.5 billion. The Washington state law dictates that the property acquired during a marriage belongs jointly to each partner and is divided equally.

Till date, Jeff Bezos' split with his wife MacKenzie Scott has been the costliest divorce, with the Amazon founder having to part with $36 billion of his wealth (all in Amazon stock). An amount that would have covered nearly half of India’s trade deficit in 2019.

The other expensive divorce was at least two decades ago when art dealer and racehorse breeder, Alec Wildenstein split with his wife, parting with $3.8 billion of his net worth. Media mogul, Rupert Murdoch had to shell out $1.7 billion in divorce settlement in the same year.

Here’s a list of most expensive divorces:

Details of Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s divorce with his wife Anne Wojcicki in 2015 are not know, but if we were to account for another costliest settlement’s in today’s dollars then well-known businessman and arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi cost $875 million in 1979, which would translate nearly $4.9 billion.

Jeff Bezos divorce has led to more donations from the now separated couple towards charities. Although Jeff Bezos has not signed The Giving Pledge, MacKenzie Scott in 2019 promised to donate half of her wealth in 2019. Last year, Bezos donated $10 billion to charities, whereas Scott donated $5.7 billion.