Mark Zuckerberg is selling shares of Meta Platforms Inc. for the first time in two years as the social media giant made a rapid recovery following a turbulent 2022.
The Meta co-founder’s trust and organizations for his charitable and political donations dumped about 682,000 shares worth nearly $185 million through trading plans in November, with the latest data announced on Wednesday, according to data obtained by Bloomberg compiled from official documents. This is the first time since November 2021 that companies managing Zuckerberg’s wealth have sold shares.
Meta rose 172% this year through the end of November, outperforming all major U.S. tech companies except Nvidia Corp. This helps maximize proceeds for Zuckerberg’s activities outside of Meta, which include venture capital, scientific research and impact investing.
He has regularly dumped blocks of Meta stock over the past decade, but didn’t sell a single share in 2022, when disastrous quarterly results led to one of the largest single-day share losses and Meta’s worst annual performance since its 2012 IPO.
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Meta stock is now nearing 2021’s record high, as Zuckerberg and his charitable foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, sold shares of the Menlo Park, California-based company for more than $1 billion. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the 39-year-old still owns about 13% of Meta, which accounts for almost all of his $117.7 billion fortune.
Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, 38, have previously pledged to give 99% of their wealth to charitable causes such as promoting equality and curing disease during their lifetimes. More than half of Meta’s recent stock sales came from stocks controlled by the foundation of the same name.
The smallest portion of the sale – about $19 million – went to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative advocacy group. The organization has funded efforts to mobilize voters and promote immigration reform.
Earlier this year, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative pledged $250 million to establish a biomedical research center in Chicago. The company previously supported efforts to address the housing shortage in the San Francisco Bay Area and made early-stage investments to train software developers in Africa.
The Palo Alto, California-based foundation, founded in 2015, has net assets of about $6.3 billion and is led by both Zuckerberg and Chan, according to recent filings. Meta’s shares have risen more than 200% since it pledged to give away most of its assets eight years ago.
