Mark Zuckerberg pledges 99% of his Facebook shares to family charity after birth of daughter
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to donate 99 per cent of his Facebook shares to a newly created foundation following the birth of his first child.Zuckerberg, along with his wife Priscilla Chan, cited the birth of their daughter Max last week as the catalyst for the move, with the couple set to donate 99 per cent of their shares across their lifetime. Their holding is currently worth $45bn.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is set to focus on long-term projects in areas including personalised learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.
The announcement was made in a letter to their daughter, in which Zuckerberg said: “As you begin the next generation of the Chan Zuckerberg family, we also begin the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to join people across the world to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation. Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.
“We will give 99% of our Facebook shares — currently about $45 billion — during our lives to advance this mission. We know this is a small contribution compared to all the resources and talents of those already working on these issues. But we want to do what we can, working alongside many others.”
It will concentrate on projects expecting outcomes in 25-100 years.
But according to an SEC filing Zuckerberg plans to maintain his majority voting position “for the foreseeable future”.
“He has informed us that he plans to sell or gift no more than $1 billion of Facebook stock each year for the next three years and that he intends to retain his majority voting position in our stock for the foreseeable future,” the filing said.
Miranda Ward
The bench mark has been set!
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That’s awesome in principle.
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Hard not to view this as (Gates-like) big noise about what is really small change to him; great act/gesture, why the need to make it public? Right, how meta…
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Wonder if Gina would ever do that in the name of her daughter? lol
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@DaveB – perhaps, but i dont see many other billionaires (other than Gates and Buffett) giving away vast amounts of their fortunes which they will never spend, to further altruistic causes.
I for one think this is a great gesture, and the publicity generated may encourage billionaires, and also regular people, to do more and give more for the common good of humanity
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Call me a cynic, but isn’t Zuck moving his dollars into a not-for-profit charity just a way for him to avoid paying tax to the IRS?
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“Mark Zuckerberg pledges 99% of his Facebook shares to family charity after birth of daughter”
What if we are interpreting this incorrectly. What if Mark’s going to keep his shares and instead just repost Facebook content about a family charity?
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woow, so generous and kind
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