They wed together before he started Amazon. She's not some vulture that came along after and made off with half his money.

Don't know why being downvoted, it's factually true.

It’s hard to believe he has achieved what he has without the support of his partner. That’s kinda the point of splitting assets upon divorce, because the law recognizes that partnership as (ideally) having been a shared effort to the benefit of both individuals.

>> Honest question: besides charity, how can you possibly spend your wealth after it creeps past the billion or ten billion mark? Buy an archipelago?

Buy influence, then use that influence to drive policy changes. Unfortunately it is not always used the way we want, some examples are the Koch brothers and Robert Mercer

Theoretically you can use this influence to drive better climate policy, better civil rights, better social justice

Spend it on your politics like Soros or Koch. Accelerate technical progress like Musk. Pure vanity like that guy who spent $600m getting the Chicago GSB named after him. I’m sure if you tried you could come up with some ways you’d like the world to be different that you could spend a lot of money on. Personally I’d love to see well recognized, respected tests that test the same knowledge as a variety of university degrees. Setting up an organization to do that and giving prizes for the top results to build brand awareness for the first decade could easily burn a million dollars a year for a decade for one subject. Advertising is expensive, organizations are expensive, people are expensive, especially qualified, competent ones.