ALONG WITH HIS daughter’s birth, Mark Zuckerberg announced today that he will give away 99% of his Facebook shares, valued at around $45 billion (€42 billion), to charity during his lifetime.
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have created the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
The Facebook CEO announced his donation in a letter to his newborn daughter, Maxima.
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.
https://www.facebook.com/chanzuckerberginitiative/videos/554704454679197/
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.
In a video made before Max’s birth, the Facebook founder said that the donation was about making sure “everyone, not just our child, can go on and make a bigger impact in the world”.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say