An exclusive source told the Post "Patrick and Lauren have socialised with Jeff Bezos and his wife for a few years, because both (now former) couples have houses in Seattle.
"Then Lauren was hired to work on one of Bezos' projects, 'Blue Origin', a space launch company, as a helicopter pilot. She has been shooting aerial shots for Bezos.
"Patrick and Lauren Sanchez have been separated for a while. Their marriage has been off and on for a while, and they tried hard to fix things, but in the fall they officially separated. She had told Patrick that she has been recently seeing Jeff Bezos."
Jeff and MacKenzie met when they worked at hedge fund D.E. Shaw, and married in 1993. He founded Amazon a year later. Bezos, 54, is worth US$137 billion (NZ$200 billion),
The divorce could reshape the wealth rankings. If the couple split their fortune equally, it could leave MacKenzie, 48, with US$69 billion, making her the world's richest woman. It could also make Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates the planet's richest person once again.
The state of Washington - where Amazon is based and the couple have a home - is a community property state, which means all property and debt acquired during a marriage "will be divided equitably by the court if the couple cannot negotiate an agreement," according to the website of McKinley Irvin, a family law firm in the region.
The couple has lived in Seattle since 1994. They have four children.
- Additional reporting from Bloomberg
