Jackie Bezos, Mother of Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos, Passes Away at 78 in Miami

MIAMI, FL — Jacklyn “Jackie” Bezos, the mother of Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos, died peacefully at her Miami home on Thursday, August 14, 2025, at the age of 78, the Bezos Scholars Program announced. Her passing marks the end of a remarkable life defined by resilience, family devotion, and significant contributions to philanthropy.

Jackie Bezos was Jeff Bezos’ birth mother, having given birth to him on January 12, 1964, at the age of 17 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Born Jacklyn Gise, she faced significant challenges as a teenage mother. She married Ted Jorgensen, Jeff’s biological father, in 1963, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1965 when Jeff was just 17 months old. Jackie later married Miguel “Mike” Bezos, a Cuban immigrant, in 1968. Mike adopted Jeff, who took the Bezos surname, and the couple went on to have two more children, Mark and Christina.

Jackie’s early life was marked by determination and grit. As a single mother, she worked as a secretary while attending night school, often bringing baby Jeff to classes in a duffel bag filled with diapers. Her perseverance paid off when she graduated from Saint Elizabeth University at age 40. In 1995, Jackie and Mike made a pivotal $245,573 investment in Jeff’s fledgling online bookstore, Amazon, a gamble that yielded a 6% stake in the company, now valued at over $2 trillion.

Beyond her role in Amazon’s origin story, Jackie was a dedicated philanthropist. Alongside Mike, she co-founded the Bezos Family Foundation, which has donated millions to education and healthcare initiatives, including a $710.5 million gift to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. In 2020, Jackie was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, a progressive neurological disorder, which she faced with characteristic courage until her passing.

The Bezos Scholars Program described her death as “a quiet final chapter to a life that embodied grit, determination, kindness, and service to others.” Tributes from family, including Jeff’s wife, Lauren Sánchez, who shared a heartfelt post on Instagram, underscored Jackie’s profound impact as a mother and grandmother. She is survived by her husband of 57 years, Mike, her three children, eleven grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

The book "Amazon.com: Get Big Fast" by Robert Spector, published in 2000, does not explicitly state that Jeff Bezos was adopted, based on available information about its content. The book focuses primarily on the founding and early years of Amazon, Jeff Bezos’ business strategies, and the growth of the company, with only a brief biography of Bezos himself. While it mentions his early life, including his studious nature and achievements (such as being profiled in a book on gifted education in Texas at age 12), there is no clear reference in the provided excerpts or summaries to his adoption by Miguel “Mike” Bezos. However, a post on X from 2020 by user @Austen references Bezos’ adoptive father, noting that his parents included “a teenage single mom and an adoptive dad who immigrated from Cuba alone at 16,” which aligns with the known fact that Jeff was adopted by Mike Bezos after his mother, Jacklyn, married Mike in 1968. This detail, while not directly from the book, reflects public knowledge about Bezos’ family background that was available at the time.