Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is selling his stock very fast. Since November 9, 2020, he has unloaded shares almost every business day, which amounts to 9.4 million shares worth $2.8 billion.
According to a Forbes report citing filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), about 90 percent of the sales were made by his philanthropic organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI).
“Zuckerberg, who is the world’s fifth-richest person with nearly $127 billion worth, has now winnowed his stake in Facebook to about 14%, down from 28% at the time of the company’s IPO,” the report mentioned.
The 37-year-old media magnate and Internet entrepreneur have taken home around $2.1 billion from the sales after taxes.
Since Facebook went public in May 2012, Forbes estimated that he sold more than 132 million Facebook shares worth nearly $15 billion.
Zuckerberg began regularly selling his Facebook stock in 2016 after he and his wife wrote a letter to their daughter Maxima, pledging to give 99 percent of their stocks over their lifetimes toward education and curing diseases.
In 2018, the Facebook CEO sold $5.3 billion worth of shares mostly through CZI.
As of 2018, Zuckerberg and Chan had donated nearly $2 billion worth of Facebook shares to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF).
Facebook shares are up more than 800 percent compared to when it went public nine years ago.
Not only Zuckerberg, but Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has also lowered his stake to 24 percent from 42 percent in the first nine years after IPO.
Bezos, 57, has sold almost $27 billion in Amazon shares before taxes, offloading about $10 billion in shares just last year.
Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in June, also gave his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott a quarter of his stake in the company during their divorce. His stake in Amazon now stands at only 10 percent.
According to the report, about 98 percent of Zuckerberg’s estimated worth is still held in Facebook stock.
“Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin trimmed their stakes to about 7 per cent from 16 per cent in the same amount of time,” the report mentioned.
