Tech exec’s ex wins $640m divorce payout
The "divorce of the century" involves AI, cheating, and a ton of money.
• less than 3 min read
South Korean tech mogul Chey Tae-won has made a lot of money selling memory chips, but yesterday might be a day he’d rather forget. A Seoul court ordered him to pay his ex-wife, Roh Soh-yeong, 944 billion won (~$640 million)—a settlement in what’s known as the “divorce of the century.”
Who is he? Chey is the chairman of SK Group, a massive conglomerate. Its SK Hynix affiliate, which recently made its US market debut, supplies chips to Nvidia. Chey is worth ~$5 billion and posts photos of himself with other tech titans under the AIM screen name Instagram handle “papatonybear.”
Who is she? Roh is the daughter of former South Korean President Roh Tae-woo, who was imprisoned after leaving office for accepting bribes and participating in a military coup.
A settled affair?
After decades of marriage, Chey publicly announced in 2015 that he was leaving Roh for a younger woman with whom he had a child. But during the decade of divorce proceedings that followed, the AI boom drove Chey’s net worth through the roof.
Roh argued she was entitled to more of his AI scratch, but the court ultimately worked off of an earlier valuation of Chey’s wealth.
Is the K-drama-worthy saga finally over? According to the Wall Street Journal, either side can appeal the decision to South Korea’s Supreme Court.—BC
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