AMAZON founder Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie are divorcing after a relationship that started at a New York hedge fund and is ending less than a year after he became the world’s richest person.

Bezos may have to give his wife half of his US$137 billion fortune in what would be the biggest divorce in history.

The couple, wed the year before he founded Amazon, are not thought to have signed a pre-nuptial agreement, according to reports.

Divorce laws in their home state Washington say wealth made during a marriage must be split 50-50.

Half of Bezos’ fortune would make award-winning author MacKenzie the world’s richest woman. She could receive as much as US$66 billion based on Amazon’s value to date.

And their breakup could dwarf the US$3.7 billion French tycoon Alec Wildenstein paid to ex-wife Jocelyn in 1999.

Bezos, 54, and MacKenzie, 48, revealed their 25-year marriage was over in a joint statement on Twitter on Wednesday, just three days shy of Bezos’s 55th birthday.

The joint tweet 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, three sons and a daughter adopted from China.

Born MacKenzie Tuttle on April 7, 1970 in San Francisco, California, the United States, MacKenzie loved literature and writing stories as a child. Her father was a financial planner and her mother was a homemaker.

Her parents encouraged her by giving her the best of education for someone who wanted to pursue journalism. Her first attempt at writing was at the age of 6 when she wrote a 142-page manuscript book that she called “The Book Worm.”

She went on to do her bachelor’s degree, with honors, in English from Princeton University in 1992. She was one of the brightest students in the class of the famed Nobel Prize-winning novelist, Toni Morrison, and excelled in creative writing. As per Morrison, MacKenzie was the best student she has ever had in her class.

Bezos and MacKenzie met in New York at D. E. Shaw. Bezos was the first person to interview MacKenzie for a role at the hedge fund and the pair ended up having offices next to each other, according to a 2013 interview with Vogue.

It was at the firm that MacKenzie fell for Bezos, and decided to make the first move.

“My office was next door to his, and all day long I listened to that fabulous laugh,” she recalled to Vogue in 2013. “How could you not fall in love with that laugh?”

For Bezos’ part, he knew exactly what he was looking for: a “resourceful” woman — and MacKenzie fit the bill.

Of their first meeting, Bezos joked to Vogue: “I think my wife is resourceful, smart, brainy, and hot, but I had the good fortune of having seen her résumé before I met her, so I knew exactly what her SATs were.”

They were engaged after three months of dating, and married just three months later. Shortly after they wed, they quit their jobs and moved to Seattle to found Amazon.

It was MacKenzie who drove the couple across the country to Seattle, according to The Wall Street Journal. MacKenzie, who later became a novelist, “was there when he wrote the business plan.”

They first lived in a one-bedroom rental in downtown Seattle as the pair worked to make Bezos’ dream a reality.

“I have no business sense whatsoever,” she told Vogue. “But I saw how excited I was.”

Bezos often discussed the bond with his wife and made the story of their marriage a foundation of his personal biography. At work, Bezos often lit up when discussing his wife and children.

MacKenzie has defended her husband, making headlines for writing a one-star Amazon review of the 2013 book “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” by Bloomberg senior executive editor Brad Stone, one of only four reviews she has posted to date.

“I worked with him and many others represented in the converted garage, the basement warehouse closet, the barbecue-scented offices, the Christmas-rush distribution centers, and the door-desk filled conference rooms in the early years of Amazon’s history,” she wrote.

MacKenzie’s presence with the company faded in later years. Most high-ranking employees saw her at social events the couple hosted at their Medina home and elsewhere. They’d also be spotted at Lakeside, a Seattle private school, with their children.

After her husband became rich and famous, MacKenzie strove to retain her privacy, according to people close to Bezos. Over the course of their marriage, the couple had their differences.

“Bezos is the opposite of me,” MacKenzie admitted to Vogue. “He likes to meet people. He’s a very social guy. Cocktail parties for me can be nerve-racking. The brevity of conversations, the number of them — it’s not my sweet spot.”

And although MacKenzie has always been a jeans and T-shirt kind of gal, Bezos never failed to lavish her with new duds.

“I pay attention to what she likes to wear, and you’d be amazed by how often things work,” Bezos told Vogue about surprising his wife with new clothes. “Sometimes I call her and say, ‘What’s your such-and-such size?’ and she says, ‘Why?’ and I say, ‘None of your business!’ It delights her. I highly recommend it to any man.”

MacKenzie published her first novel, “The Testing of Luther Albright,” in 2005 and received acclaim for it.

Kate Bolick reviewed MacKenzie’s debut novel in The New York Times Book Review, calling it “quietly absorbing.” The novel won the 2005 American Book Award.

“Writing makes her really happy,” Bezos told Vogue of MacKenzie, noting that she would often get up early to write. By the time I come down she will be literally dancing in the kitchen, which the kids and I love.”

And MacKenzie was grateful for his support. “Bezos is my best reader,” she said.

“Writing is such a ‘pretend’ profession,” she told Vogue. “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.”

Bezos said the novel took her 10 years to write.

In the Vogue interview, 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’s second novel, “Traps,” a thriller about four women whose lives intersect over four days, was released in 2013.

Of working with Morrison, Bezos revealed to Charlie Rose, “It was a huge opportunity for me. I’d always loved her work. She was an amazingly supportive teacher, really good at bringing out the best and guiding you through the process.” Bezos considers Morrison a mentor, praising her for reaching out while she was struggling to write her first book.

A key piece of advice Morrison gave in a Princeton long fiction class is: “Writing something long is all about the timed release of information.”

Bezos told Rose that this is actually her “favorite part of writing a book. The first part is harder for me and less pleasurable. You’re making up the story. The whole time I’m anxious for and looking forward to that moment when 10 to 12 things about the story seem too real to change. Once I know what the story is, then I can go back and figure out which things do I want to tell when.”(SD-Agencies)