Mark Zuckerberg says he's giving 99% of his Facebook shares — $45 billion — to charity
By Biz Carson at Business Insider
Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that he's giving away 99% of his Facebook shares — valued at $45 billion today — to charity during his lifetime.
The Facebook CEO announced the news in a letter to his newborn daughter, Max.
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, created the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Its mission mimics much of what Zuckerberg and Chan's donations have focused on in the past: personalized learning, curing diseases, and connecting people.
The move is not surprising given that five years ago Zuckerberg signed the "Giving Pledge" — along with other tech billionaires such as Bill Gates — to give away the majority of his wealth.
[Picture at BI: Rick Wilking/ReutersMark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.]
More from ZeroHedge:
Zuckerberg To Donate 99% Of His Facebook Shares To "Advance Human Potential"
Moments ago, in a joint letter with his wife Priscilla, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that his wife had just given birth to a daughter, Max, but the real highlight of the letter is the part in the text in which he discloses that in order to "advance human potential" and "promote equality" for all children in the next generation, Zuckerberg begins the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and that in order to advance this mission, Zuckerberg will give 99% of his Facebook shares, currently worth $45 billion, to "advance this mission"
From the letter:
For your generation to live in a better world, there is so much more our generation can do.
Today your mother and I are committing to spend our lives doing our small part to help solve these challenges. I will continue to serve as Facebook’s CEO for many, many years to come, but these issues are too important to wait until you or we are older to begin this work. By starting at a young age, we hope to see compounding benefits throughout our lives.
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 personalised 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.
For the sake of "human potential" and equality of children everywhere, we for one hope that the value of the shares held by the proud new father retain their value in perpetuity, and that billions of people around the world do everything in their power to preserve their own "Facebook revenue generating potential" and spend as many of the 24 hours in a day in front of a Facebook screen as they possibly can, doing what they must for the sake of human betterment: clicking on ads.
