02 December, 2015: Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive of Facebook, announced on Tuesday that he and his wife would give 99 percent of their Facebook shares “during our lives†— holdings currently worth more than $45 billion — to charitable purposes.
Max was born last week, but the couple only made the news of her birth public on Tuesday.
Mr Zuckerberg said the aim of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is “to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation”. Its initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.
Zuckerberg’s new project, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, is not his first in the world of philanthropy. When he was 26, he signed the Giving Pledge, which invites the world’s wealthiest individuals and families to commit to giving more than half of their wealth to philanthropy or charitable causes over their lifetime or in their will.
