All billionaires are bad, but MacKenzie Scott—novelist, Toni Morrison protégée, and ex-wife of Jeff Bezos—is at least doing a better job than most at growing her vast fortune at a slightly less alarming rate than most of the other billionaires in the world.

Scott, who recently donated $436 million to Habitat for Humanity International and 84 affiliates, has donated 22% of her net worth to charity, according to Axios, putting her far above other “philanthropic” billionaires, including Charles Koch (3.3%), Mark Zuckerberg (2.7%), and, of course, Bezos himself (1.1%). So, congratulations to MacKenzie Scott, the least bad billionaire!

Of course, because of the unfathomable vastness of her remaining fortune—$54 billion—her wealth continues to grow “faster than she can give it away.” Actually, no. I think if she set her mind to it, she could probably give it away faster. Maybe buy every unhoused person in the country a house? Or subsidize all insulin for the uninsured indefinitely? Or, you know, I can’t imagine it’s all that time-consuming to just buy Joe Manchin. Maybe just find out how much that coal company is paying him and pay him $100 more than that?

Just spitballing!

Jessie Gaynor

Jessie Gaynor

Jessie Gaynor is a senior editor at Lit Hub whose writing has appeared in McSweeney's, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. Her debut novel, The Glow was published by Random House in 2023. You can buy it here.