Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is selling a very small portion of his Facebook stock.
Mark Zuckerberg sold $95 million in Facebook stock to start making good on his philanthropy promise
It’s the first of what we imagine will be many stock sales for Zuckerberg.
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An SEC filing on Friday shows that Zuckerberg sold approximately 768,000 shares of Facebook stock in August worth more than $95 million. Zuckerberg used a 10b5-1 trading plan, which means the sale was scheduled ahead of time to avoid any issues with insider trading.
He isn’t just cashing out, though. The filing states that the sale was made as part of Zuckerberg’s recent promise to give away or spend 99 percent of his wealth on companies and initiatives that focus on “personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.”
Zuckerberg announced the plan along with his wife, Priscilla, after the couple had their first baby in December. The goal, Zuckerberg said at the time, is to “advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation.”
This is the first sale we’ve seen from Zuckerberg since that announcement was made last December. At the time he said he would limit his spending/donations to $1 billion per year for the next three years. That means this is probably the first of many such sales we’ll see from him in 2016. Facebook has even changed its company stock structure so Zuckerberg can give away his stake without giving away his control.
A company spokesperson declined to comment, and it’s unclear from the filing where this $95 million will be spent. Zuckerberg still owns well over 400 million shares of Facebook stock.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
