Chase Koch (son of Charles Koch) and His Wife Annie Breitenbach Koch Divorce

For many years I have covered this Koch family on this blog. Within the past few years it appears that Chase Koch and his wife Annie have been divorced. Someone had made a comment in one of my recent posts about them being divorced. I looked into it and found very scant evidence at first with only one credible article from Inside Philanthropy from September 2020 referring to Annie as the "ex-wife". However, I know recently Chase Koch has been interviewed for many different things and it is noticeable that he is not wearing his wedding ring in the videos for a couple of years. Recently I did notice Chase looked visibly tired when being interviewed with severe dark bags under his eyes both in this June 2021 interview, a Koch industries promotional video in June 2021, at the 2021 TPI Aspen Forum from September 2021.

I can't ascertain the timeline of the divorce. An article from the Wichita Business Journal discusses Annie and Chase talking about the school that they started together in October 2019. In a video with Youth Entrepreneurs in August 2020 Chase is noticeably not wearing a wedding ring. My best guess would be that Chase and his wife Annie separated between late 2019 to early 2020. It is worth pointing out that Liz Koch (mother of Chase Koch) was divorced before she met Charles Koch. 

Chase Koch and Annie Breitenbach were married November 1, 2010. The wedding was covered in a Koch Industries Discovery magazine that all employees receive. Annie at the time was roughly 25 years old and Chase was 33 years old at the time. Annie attended the University of Kansas and had become an RN and worked in the Wichita area. The couple the same year they were married purchased 70 acres of land and a house for $3 million according to this article. The couple have three children together including their first child Charles Gerard Koch who was baptized in June 2012. Annie Koch is media shy and the only video I have seen of her from 2013 when she was the host of a breakfast interview between Chase and his mother Liz Koch. Annie listed all Chase's household duties of being a diaper changer, trash man, and in charge of dog do removal services. She then mentions his professional career and duties and at the end says "Wow babe no wonder you barely make it home for dinner on time". 

There currently can be only speculation as to what happened that led to the divorce. One potential issue that could have put a strain on the marriage was Chase Koch and the hours he worked. Chase would have a very busy day and according to Kochland and his day "started around 6:30 and proceeded-"wall to wall" until 6 or 7 at night" and Chase admitted in this video that he wasn't spending enough of time with his family. Part of the issue was Chase was not delegating and President of Koch Industries Dave Robertson explained to Chase that he was in charge of his own calendar and had to say no to things. Chase felt as if he had to be involved with every little detail and to the point that was almost micromanaging (Charles would admit to micromanaging himself as well). Chase was Executive Vice President of Koch Ag and Energy Solutions from 2014 to 2017. After 2017 Chase became President of Koch Disruptive Technologies which is an subsidiary of Koch Industries that looks at promising technology companies that Koch Industries can invest in to grow and enhance their own business. You can almost think of this division as a venture capital firm within Koch Industries.  

It was reported within the past few years that Charles Koch continues to work weekends (despite being in his 80's) and is a workaholic. People forget that being a workaholic is a type of addiction just like drugs or alcohol that perhaps could be inherited. At one point Liz Koch pointed out that Chase worked to hard and resembled the tendencies of his father (Charles Koch). Charles Koch himself was a workaholic. According to this article in the 1997 from Fortune magazine Charles would put in 12 hours a day at the office and then go home and work some more. Charles would have executives meeting on Saturday mornings and sometimes meetings would last until Saturday evening. and would ask folks to come in on a Saturday or Sunday to the Wichita office. One Sunday in August 1968 Charles Koch called a meeting that started at 4 P.M. and went until midnight! Charles would admit in this interview that Saturday and Sunday are more fun to work anywhere and he would drive employees crazy day or night leaving them voice messages. 

It is important to remember that Chase Koch is a shareholder of Koch Industries stock (he has been on the board of Koch Industries since 2013). My understanding is that various trusts hold the actual Koch Industries Inc. stock and with Kansas being a separate property state as long as Chase can show the assets were his to begin with and weren't commingled with other assets there shouldn't be any issues of him retaining Koch Industries stock. Usually assets in trusts are protected both from creditors and divorce. Of course he will have to provide some type of support for his wife Annie and three children. Also I would think given the many legal battles the Koch family faced in the 1990's and early 2000's that Annie Koch would have signed some type of prenuptial agreement as well. Former Koch shareholder J. Howard Marshall (yes the one married to Anna Nicole Smith) had a prenuptial agreement that would pay Anna Nicole $100,000 for each month they were married and $5 million if they had a child together. It would be interesting to know if Chase Koch had some type of prenuptial agreement with Annie. Also the other issue will be the custody of the children as well in terms of going between Chase and Annie (which won't be easy emotionally).

Another issue is given the couple created the Chase and Annie Foundation (which I covered here) it will be interesting to see if they still work together on this project. Annie herself is involved with the Wonder School (a non traditional school that teaches more of the Socrates method). Currently Annie is the oldest person at the Wonder School and on her about me page is currently reading "Untamed", enjoys running, reading, and kombucha, and has been a vegan since 2016. The initial cost of the school was $1.5 million and the school would pay Wichita State $90,000 per year to use a building on the campus of Wichita State. 

It will be interesting to see how this divorce between Chase and Annie Koch affects the future. Like I said I really haven't seen any news articles directly discussing the issue. Personally I am curious what the cause of the divorce was. Also given Chase has three children and is busy at work is if he will get married again at all. The statistics on divorce are interesting with about 50% of people getting remarried within 5 years of their divorce. It will also be interesting if ultimately the divorce will hurt the career of Chase at Koch Industries too. More importantly it would be interesting down the road given Chase has third children and his aunt Julia Koch has three children as well (to my knowledge Elizabeth Koch doesn't have any children) creating 6 new potential shareholders of Koch Industries.