No one has ever given away more money as fast as Mackenzie Scott, philanthropist and former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Since 2019, Scott, who has disposed more than 75% of the Amazon shares she received from Bezos, has donated $26.4 billion to more than 2,500 groups. In 2025 alone, she gave away $7.2 billion — more than what world’s richest billionaires – Elon Musk, Larry Page, Larry Ellison, and even her ex-husband Bezos have donated in their entire lifetimes combined. But Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan has a different opinion. Sharing a post on X (formerly Twitter), Tan called the donations ‘bad’. Garry Tan argued that her lack of oversight fosters mismanagement, likening it to “pouring sugar on the floor” that attracts chaos.Tesla CEO Elon Musk seemed to agree who replied to Tan’s post writing “Yup”. “MacKenzie Scott has given away $26B faster than anyone in history — with no oversight, and no accountability for the chaos that follows,” Tan wrote in the post. “This is not stewardship. Real philanthropy requires real care and attention. Pour sugar on the floor? You get ants,” he added.

‘No vetting of organisations MacKenzie Scott donated to’

The Y Combinator CEO also shared a blog post where he argued that “Big money giving has big bad effects”. He cites a Harvard spokesperson who told Fortune that the school found out about its $80 million grant “only when someone from Scott’s Yield Giving emailed them. No apparent vetting”. “From Howard’s perspective there was no prior relationship. No conversation about whether the institution could absorb that kind of windfall. Just an email saying the money’s coming,” he writes.Garry Tan compares it to Warren Buffet who he says builds decades-long relationships with the Gates Foundation and his family charities. Buffet, who has a lifetime giving of $68.3 billion (as per Forbes) “understands what they do. He watches outcomes”. Scott’s approach, on the other hand is the opposite — “spray and pray at a scale nobody has ever attempted”.

Mackenzie Scott’s donations allegedly destroyed a Hispanic college

Explaining further, he gives an example of Whittier College of how donations can have unintended consequences. A report by The Free Press said that a $12 million donation from MacKenzie Scott to a small Hispanic college led to internal turmoil. According to the report, the college president used part of the funds to hire her son for a six-figure role that staff members said lacked a clearly defined purpose. Consequently, leadership changes followed, enrollment dropped from about 490 freshmen to fewer than 300, and the school later faced a $10 million budget shortfall, the report said.It also pointed to the San Francisco Community Land Trust, which received $20 million from Scott. He noted that some board members have taken strong positions on housing and policing issues.