[en] The latest data from the ACME experiment have led to the most stringent limit to date on the electric dipole moment d_e of the electron. Nevertheless, the standard model (SM) prediction for d_e is many orders of magnitude below the new result, making this observable a powerful probe for physics beyond the SM. We perform a model-independent study of d_e in the SM plus right handed neutrinos and its extension with the seesaw mechanism under the framework of minimal flavor violation (MFV). We find that d_e crucially depends on whether neutrinos are Dirac or Majorana fermions. In the Majorana case, d_e can reach its measured bound, which therefore constrains the scale of MFV to be above a few hundred GeV. We also consider extra CP-violating sources in the Yukawa couplings of the right-handed neutrinos. Such new sources can have important effects on d_e. (paper)