Mark Zuckerberg gives away $95 million facebook shares in charity

By Payal Dwivedi on August 21, 2016 at 1:34 PM

To fulfill his owe that he and his wife made earlier Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has sold $95 million of the social networking giant’s shares. According to a US regulatory filing, The Chan Zuckerberg Foundation and CZI Holdings LLC sold Facebook shares worth $95 million before taxes, Forbes reported on Saturday. The couple plans to give away no more than $1 billion worth of stock each year through 2018.

Last December, Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan pledged to donate 99 per cent of their Facebook shares — about $45 billion — to advance human potential and promote equality for children. As the ‘Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’ they welcomed their first girl Maxima Chan Zuckerberg, the couple said they have created a new foundation that would initially focus on ‘personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities’.

‘We will give 99 per cent of our Facebook shares 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,’ the couple wrote. Facebook currently has 1.71 billion monthly active users.