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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.Screen Shot 2015-12-02 at 10.31.44 AMZuckerberg, 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

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