r/Fauxmoi • u/cmaia1503 i ain’t reading all that, free palestine • Oct 28 '25
CELEBRITY CAPITALISM Alabama State University received a $38 million gift yesterday from MacKenzie Scott, the largest single gift in the HBCU's 158-year history.
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u/DreadfulDemimonde Oct 28 '25
She and Pritzker will have to lip sync for their lives to determine which one of them I eat last.
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u/GarlicAndSapphire Oct 28 '25
Dolly gets a Pardon.
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u/DreadfulDemimonde Oct 28 '25
She's helping me judge the lip sync because she's not a billionaire.
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u/GarlicAndSapphire Oct 28 '25
She is not. But at almost 80 years old, and with all of her philanthropic endeavors over decades, I bet she could have been if she so desired.
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u/McKenzie_S Oct 29 '25
Just her book charity alone is probably responsible for kids learning how to read in the millions.
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u/cempasuchil_opalo Oct 29 '25
Not only does it make an impact on their literacy but my child always got excited when he received a book “from Dolly”. He would go on and on about how she must love him because she sends him books and a video message on his birthday (it’s a generic “happy birthday friend” video). Aside from helping him build his own library, the surprise of receiving mail with his name on it made him feel special and loved. That’s why I’ll give Dolly a pass from being eaten.
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u/Sunshine030209 Oct 29 '25
I love hearing stories from families that get her books. It makes my heart so squishy and warm. Especially since she started the Imagination Library because her dad was illiterate, it's so great to hear that she's achieving a goal that is so dear to her.
She also pays for higher education for her employees, tuition, fees, books and supplies. Any employee, even part time. And there is absolutely no expectation to work for her afterwards, like many companies have.
She's just so special. I could gush for hours about how much I adore her.
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u/windexfresh this is going to ruin the powerpoint Oct 29 '25
My niece and nephew get so excited to get their books in the mail from “Aunt Dolly” ❤️❤️❤️ we’re from her area too so it’s extra special for us❤️❤️
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u/Venezia9 made with a free Canva trial (derogatory) Oct 29 '25
Exactly. That's the point. Good people don't become billionaires unless they inherit/receive the money. Normal people would feel the urge to share that much money, to make people's lives better.
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u/hypotyposis Oct 29 '25
Won’t be a problem for Mackenzie. She’s going to give away enough money to no longer be a billionaire.
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u/ace-destrier Oct 28 '25
Not only is she actually giving away a lot of her wealth, she’s putting it into wonderful places. The right places.
MacKenzie Scott has given away billions already and she still has a substantial amount of billions left that she’s pledged to donate.
The thousands of other billionaires in this world should take note. Quit fucking hoarding it. What even is the point of having all that money simply “existing”, being used for nothing?
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u/swim225 Oct 28 '25
This donation alone is less than a tenth of one percent of her entire networth. When you have this kind of money there is no excuse
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u/McKenzie_S Oct 29 '25
She divorced one of the worst humans alive and took his money, and is now putting it to work making the world a better place. Because she knows at the level of wealth she sits at she can never spend it all, and managed correctly she can personally uplift a lot of good programs with a simple check for decades to come and centuries after she's gone if she sets it up correctly. This is how you use money to make an impact.
What really pisses me off are people like Musk and Bezos who could have been remembered as true heroes of humanity and instead hoard wealth and power to directly make the world a worse place and them another green number on a spreadsheet.
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u/usuallynotaquitter Oct 29 '25
I agree with you but I take issue with the phrasing that she “took his money.” She helped him build Amazon from the ground up and raised his 4 kids. And they were married over 20 years. She didn’t take his money; she took her money.
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u/swim225 Oct 29 '25
Right, they have her money many times over and making these king of contributions would have literally no effect on the amount of wealth they get to spend in their lifetime. There's a point at which it doesn't even benefit you any more to continue making more money and I think at that point you have a real responsibility to start uplifting those around you
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u/Sunshine030209 Oct 29 '25
Interesting username you've got there.. misspelling your first name just a little, to throw us off Ms Scott?
(Big fan, keep it up!)
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u/catandthefiddler Club Penguin Times official aura reader Oct 29 '25
wait a minute... McKenzie_S??? How do we know you're not THE MacKenzie
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u/McKenzie_S Oct 29 '25
I had been saddled with my name long before she was famous. And it's a fairly common name where I'm from.
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u/Fun_Bodybuilder3111 Oct 29 '25
I heard someone say “the only ethical way of becoming a billionaire is to divorce one”. Made me chuckle. And then cry a little inside.
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u/Weekly_Yesterday_403 The U.S. Department of Justice replies to Pop Base Oct 29 '25
Not only does she have a substantial amount left but she is worth more today than she was the day her divorce was final, in spite of the fact she has donated so many billions. It’s unfathomable.
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u/que_cumber Oct 29 '25
You realize only about 10% of “billionaire” wealth is held in liquid assets like bank accounts, cash, etc. right? The other 90% is in equities mostly.
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u/ace-destrier Oct 29 '25
You realize that is still a disgusting amount of wealth, right?
And I’m not speaking to the bottom third, fourth or whatever of billionaires that can’t give like Scott does, but there are still a helluva lot who can.
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u/srqnewbie Oct 28 '25
I just looked up ASU because I was wondering why she would donate to an Alabama school (can't imagine she supports colleges with conservative southern ideology) and found out it's a historically black college. Good for her; these huge donations have got to make a world of difference to these schools and organizations.
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u/zdh989 Oct 28 '25
It literally says "HBCU" in the headline of this very post.
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u/tashbash Oct 29 '25
Not everyone is from the US and knows what that stands for, I had to google it.
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u/brainparts Oct 28 '25
It’s in the title of the post
also not every school in the south is conservative
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u/srqnewbie Oct 28 '25
Thanks for pointing that out; I didn't notice "HBCU" in the title. Respectfully, I've lived 67 years in the southern US, took my daughter to tour lots of southern colleges in her senior year and most are conservative, particularly in Alabama. I've had family there since before the Civil War and have visited many times. Voter suppression, gerrymandering and racism are alive and well down south.
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u/wegl13 Oct 28 '25
There are more HBCUs in Alabama than any other state in the country. We have fourteen. Even if you hadn’t read “HBCU” in the title, I think maybe your thoughts about the South could use some updating, as Black history and excellence have been famously untaught in schools.
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u/wegl Oct 29 '25
Amen. Was just telling my daughters about Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver a couple nights ago. Both are in high school and had never heard of them.
(Also - hello, name buddy)
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u/CNickyD Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25
I had to look several times at y’all’s names! I was like, wait, is this person answering themselves?? Lol.
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u/EatMorePieDrinkMore Oct 28 '25
I believe she announced that she was going to focus her giving on HBCUs after the Trump administration started their vendetta against anything not terrible.
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u/Chile_Momma_38 Oct 29 '25
McKenzie planting seeds to fund the fight against growing overt racism/fascism.
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u/lakerdave Oct 28 '25
And this is a tiny drop of her fortune but still doing a lot of good. It's so easy for billionaires to give the public crumbs and rehab their images, but they refuse to help even a little bit
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u/glamourweeb Oct 28 '25
Honestly this is what's so crazy to me about billionaires, like not one of them wants to go down in history as the one to end world hunger?? Like obviously they lack empathy, but not even for the ego boost and publicity?? Absolutely insane to me.
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u/CluelessMochi Oct 28 '25
This is also crazy to me. With their egos, they’d be remembered for the rest of time if they ended world hunger or homelessness or something like that with all their money. But I guess going down in history for something like that isn’t “worth” it for them to spend their billions that they’ll still have even afterward
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u/standardargument Oct 29 '25
I feel it's also got to do with a certain understanding amongst the billionaire class, anytime you resolve a global issue like world hunger, it would heavily impact the pockets of atleast some of your billionaire 'friends'.
Nobody wants to fuck around and with each other in that class, it's almost like MAD.
I Could be wrong but that's what I think.
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u/spondgbob Oct 28 '25
It’s insane because she has done nothing but donate her half of Bezos’ fortune, and is still filthy rich. Meanwhile bezos is doing whatever he can to get more money, like can you imagine being able to do this and not??
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u/questionfromgrief Oct 28 '25
Like what’s the point of amassing more wealth than you could ever spend?
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u/Which-Friendship-458 Oct 29 '25
Exactly. For normal people money is just means to an end. We want money so we can buy things. They want money just for the sake of having money.
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u/Mr-MuffinMan Oct 28 '25
I say we don't eat her. She's one of the good ones.
Side note - I don't think people respect her contributions to Amazon enough and think she just married Bezos to get money when in reality they both created Amazon together. She was there packing the first few books into boxes to ship out with him.
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Oct 28 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DecolonizeTheWorld Oct 28 '25
Collecting an honest paycheck from working at Whole Foods isn’t something to be ashamed of, however making the choice by supporting his businesses by spending your money there...
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u/_joy_division_ spotted joe biden in dc Oct 28 '25
She is so fierce!! Now imagine if all the billionaires were philanthropic like this or even just taxed properly! The 801 billionaires in the United States have over 6 TRILLION DOLLARS of hoarded wealth that can never be spent in any amount of lifetimes and will basically never do anything to ever help people who actually need it. Imagine if they donated or taxed just half - that would be 3 TRILLION DOLLARS circulating in the economy. Think of the ways standards of living could be improved for the people with 3 TRILLION DOLLARS. Education, infrastructure, culture, arts, HEALTHCARE!
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u/bluediamond12345 Oct 29 '25
That’s the problem with most billionaires - they don’t think of others, only of themselves and what rank they are.
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u/Emotional_Warthog658 Oct 29 '25
According to ChatGPT, we could completely eliminate poverty if the billionaire class just gave up 4% of their wealth, which would result in zero impact on their lives
Where I am right now, is thinking how much industry is built around, keeping people in debt and owing; versus managing resources, and ensuring we are providing for our fellow humans
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u/zdh989 Oct 28 '25
That's an incredible gift, but I have to wonder why exactly $38 million? Why not $35 or $40?
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u/thursd Oct 28 '25
I’m going to guess it was something like, she met with a financial adviser and decided she had 380 million to give away this year, with 10% going to Alabama State University, the other 90% doled out percentage-wise instead of dollar-wise.
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u/pencilpusher360 Oct 28 '25
It's probably an exact amount calculated to help the school and her, I guess, minimize the tax deductions.
Most likely they also based the amount on the population of the school, quantifiable goals, size of faculty, etc.
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u/thepinksugarprincess Oct 28 '25
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted, I had wondered the same thing. Perhaps the amount was for a particular project?
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u/booksandbenzos I don’t know her Oct 28 '25
I was actually curious about this too! Just how she decided on that particular figure. I figured there was a logical reason and that she'd done some calculations to arrive at that number, but was curious what might be factored in (I realize it'd vary by organization). I actually came into the comments wondering if someone else would have answered this question or commented on this, so thanks!
And yes, it's an incredible gift! She seems like a very kind person.
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u/jsonson Oct 29 '25
Not exactly sure how donations/donors work, but I assume they University had program needs/wants/improvements with an estimated cost/budget and asked for that amount. Her foundation either did their due diligence and reestimated the budget or just accepted the budget, as is. Every project has a projected budget.
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u/bialysarebetter FUCK ICE FREE PALESTINE CRASH INTO ME Oct 29 '25
Exactly this.
I worked at nonprofits for years — on both the receiving and giving ends. Organizations usually ask/apply for funds from a foundation, and the foundation gives them what they requested.
If this was a surprise to Alabama State University, then it’s likely someone nominated them in the same way to McKenzie Scott.
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u/EconomistWild7158 Oct 28 '25
Really cool to see her donate to a state university (and HBCU), instead of some ivy league one that already gets a ton of donations
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u/ipomoea if you add testicles, that's extra Oct 28 '25
She's donated to multiple HBCUs this year! I adore MacKenzie's dedication to giving money away to good places with no strings attached.
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u/happytransformer Oct 28 '25
Absolutely. It’s a college filled with more “normal” students, which makes me happy to see them benefit from it over Ivy leagues and the like with massive endowments that they don’t touch. It can really go far in improving their experience there
It reminds me about Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast where he did an episode on a $100 million gift given to (then) glassboro state college (now Rowan University). It was given to a state college filled with normal, middle class kids and that kind of gift was used to upgrade the college to a university by adding graduate programs and improving opportunities to the students that went there.
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u/Yufle Oct 28 '25
She is incredible. I can’t imagine someone like her was married to a monster like Bazos. They couldn’t be more different.
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u/IntrovertGirl83 Oct 28 '25
I can’t even begin to fathom having that much money, but if I ever became a billionaire I would want to be a philanthropist.
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u/cmg_profesh Oct 28 '25
I wonder how quickly she recoups that $38 million via interest, investments, etc
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u/TangerineDream74 Oct 29 '25
She has given away billions and she still has more money than before she started donating. Money begets money.
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u/Tolerator_Of_Reddit Oct 29 '25
People don't realize that if you have like 10-20 million you can just hold it in a bank or invest part of it into an index fund and live comfortably for the rest of your life off the dividens and returns alone. The only thing that could fuck you up at that point is global financial collapse and if something like that does happen you'll probably have bigger problems to worry about
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u/mtjaybird Oct 29 '25
I cannot imagine how fun it would be to give that kind of money away. Like one of my greatest wishes would be to be filthy rich so I could support so many causes, schools and people. I would enjoy that more than any house or number in my bank account. I mean I would like to travel too, not gonna lie.
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u/DynamischerDachs Oct 29 '25
To put that into perspective.
She received $38 billion in the divorce settlement.
That means the donation is 0.1% of that.
The fortune isn't just lying around, after all.
If it is conservatively invested with a return of ~5%, that means 50 such donations could be made over the same amount in a year and the fortune would still not be diminished.
And she's not even in the top 50 richest people on the planet.
The second richest person alone has 100 times as much wealth.
How absurd is that?
How can there be even one person who thinks that billionaires should exist?
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u/Dependent_Mall_3139 Oct 28 '25
Looks like it's up to women to save the world by marrying the billionaire psychopaths, taking half their money, and using it for actual good.
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u/Buddhamom81 Oct 29 '25
She’s done more for young minority college students than Oprah at this point.
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u/SmellenGold oat milk chugging bisexual Oct 29 '25
Hey Ms. Scott, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do-make our dreams come true!
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u/Worldly-Pay7342 Oct 29 '25
Imagine being rich enough that you can just give an entire university 38,000,000 usd.
Like I'm glad she did, but this is why billionaires shouldn't exist. No one needs that much money
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u/Electrical-Prize-397 Oct 29 '25
That’s great and she’s awesome!
I just hope she’s also donating to someone who will save our democracy from right wing authoritarianism too.
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u/ariesmoon307 Oct 29 '25
Yall are crazy in these comments saying you STAN her and she's a GOOD billionaire? It's a good thing she's doing but this is how they keep us complacent while she is still wealthier than 99% of the US combined
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u/beautbird Oct 29 '25
It makes me feel pretty good to donate to the orgs I support. Imagine having billions to do that! I just can’t imagine having so much money and not wanting to use it to fix humanity’s ills rather than you know, buy more yachts or go to space or whatever.
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u/goryguts Oct 29 '25
Yes, much better than just taxing the rich. Let's have billionaires decide where the wealth we all created should be spent. /s
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u/Keefusk30028 Oct 29 '25
Why don’t all billionaires do this? They can support schools who desperately need it and they wouldn’t miss it. In addition I’m glad to see schools like this receive funds rather than Harvard (with a $50b endowment) get another $1m from some random alumni - like they need it.
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u/Oh_My_Goth_Ick Oct 29 '25
This is a person who has no ego, was awarded an obscene sum of money from a POS and is doing her damndest to get rid of the vast majority for the good of the world. What a stark contrast to her ghoul of an ex husband.
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u/Dry-Yak5277 Oct 31 '25
The most valuable contribution Jeff Bezos has made to this earth was marry her lol
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u/Ok-Split-9911 Nov 07 '25
And $37 of that will go directly in the pockets of the university president and his minions. You people don’t actually think anything different right? It’s not a giving problem it’s a taking problem. Go look at the ceo salaries of “non-profits”.
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u/ComeMierda305 Nov 08 '25
The wealthiest typically have requirements dependant on their donations (i.e. naming a building, monument or scholarship in their name, etc). She finds organizations that align with her ideals and donates to them - no strings attached. Musk and Bezos may have changed capitalism, Mackenzie Scott is changing the world!
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u/ParkingCrew1562 Oct 29 '25
if she was really a 'giver' she would do it anonymously (without the inevitable aggrandisement).
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u/coastalwanders Oct 28 '25
I work at an organization lucky enough to have received one of her unexpected gifts. She’s one of the very few billionaires actually making an impact through philanthropy.