In
a Facebook post to newborn child Max, the Facebook CEO says he will
administer the initiative himself using 99% of shares in company’s stock
The Zuckerbergs announced two births on Tuesday: a baby girl, and to one of the world’s biggest charities.
That sterling spoon you might have been considering for Mark
Zuckerberg’s new baby may no longer be the most exciting gift to the Facebook
billionaire’s daughter: after revealing his wife, Priscilla Chan, had
given birth to their first child, Max, Zuckerberg announced the creation
of a charity organization called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
The couple have pledged to give away 99% of their Facebook shares in their lifetime, currently worth about $45bn.
The charity, which has “the mission of advancing human potential and
promoting equality”, will be administered by the CEO himself and is
already on track to be worth a potential $3bn by 2018.
The Zuckerbergs celebrate the birth of a beautiful baby philanthropy.
Zuckerberg announced the move on Facebook in the form of a letter to his baby:
Dear Max,
Your mother and I don’t yet have the words to describe the hope you
give us for the future. Your new life is full of promise, and we hope
you will be happy and healthy so you can explore it fully. You’ve
already given us a reason to reflect on the world we hope you live in.
Like all parents, we want you to grow up in a world better than ours today.
While headlines often focus on what’s wrong, in many ways the world
is getting better. Health is improving. Poverty is shrinking. Knowledge
is growing. People are connecting. Technological progress in every field
means your life should be dramatically better than ours today.
We will do our part to make this happen, not only because we love
you, but also because we have a moral responsibility to all children in
the next generation.
We believe all lives have equal value, and that includes the many
more people who will live in future generations than live today. Our
society has an obligation to invest now to improve the lives of all
those coming into this world, not just those already here.
Zuckerberg plans to finance the endeavor using his stock options.
Some 99% of his shares will go to the charity – the tech tycoon owns 4m
shares of class A common stock and 419m shares of class B, which have
the majority of voting rights.
“[D]uring his lifetime, he will gift or otherwise direct
substantially all of his shares of Facebook stock, or the net after-tax
proceeds from sales of such shares, to further the mission of advancing
human potential and promoting equality by means of philanthropic, public
advocacy, and other activities for the public good,” the company said
in the filing.
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Joel
Fleishman, professor of law and public policy sciences at Duke
University, said he believed the announcement would spur giving among
the super-rich.
“I follow this pretty closely and hardly a day goes by that somebody
doesn’t say he’s going to give away all his assets to charity,”
Fleishman said, noting that Zuckerberg’s early-years Facebook colleague
Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna said they were going to give
away their fortune, which amounts to some $8bn, as well. “It does exemplify the spirit of the times.”
Fleishman observed that the project had become particularly popular
among the young and extraordinarily wealthy, who prefer “giving while
living” to willing their assets to charity. “I celebrate his decision to
do it as I celebrate Warren Buffet’s decision to give all that money to
the Gates Foundation. People who’ve made all that money are by nature
competitive; someone that young giving away that much money will
undoubtedly stimulate others to do likewise.”
But it’s not the executive’s first foray into charity, nor the first
this week. Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Richard Branson and others announced
an initiative to invest in new energy sources to stem the rising tide of
climate change on Monday.
Results of his previous philanthropic efforts have been mixed: In
2010, Zuckerberg partnered with then-mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Cory
Booker (who has since become the state’s junior senator) to improve the
notoriously poor-quality schools in the city with a donation of $100m.
The endeavor was widely criticized for the percentage of the gift that
went to pay consultants, among other problems.
FWD.us, a political advocacy group started by Zuckerberg and Gates,
has also stalled after its efforts to lobby for immigration reform
failed, despite some $50m in backing from big-name tech personalities.
