Mark Zuckerberg Gives $990 Million To Charity

mrspoonsi writes with this excerpt from Business Insider: "This morning, Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to give 18 million Facebook shares to charity by the end of the month. Facebook is currently trading at $55 per share, so Zuckerberg's gift is worth just under $1 billion. The money will go toward Zuckerberg's foundation, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and The Breakthrough Prize In Life Science, a [Nobel] Prize-like award. Zuckereberg is giving his shares away as part of a secondary stock offering from Facebook. Reuters says Zuckerberg will sell 41.4 million shares, reducing his voting power in the company from 58.8% to 56.1%. Other insiders selling include board member Marc Andreessen, who will sell 1.65 million shares. Facebook is selling 27 million."

Re:so he gave

[Pope]

Correct. Gates has one of the biggest tax dodges in history.

Damn Greedy One-Percenters!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I hate about those greedy rich people. Always giving their money away to charity, endowing the arts and building sports facilities for all to enjoy. Who the hell do they think they are?

Re:oh boy...

[Anonymous Coward]

He's giving the stock, not money. When he monetizes the stock is when he'd get killed in taxes. The Foundation can then sell the stock for cash tax-free but is under a lot of regulation as to what can be done with the money. Taxes in America make this the only reasonable way for the wealthy to "give." You can't do things like pay off other people's mortgages without a massive tax burden both ways. (Having your mortgage paid off by someone else is income.) Blame the IRS for these goofy constructs, not those giving millions and billions.

Re:oh boy...

[pepty]

Gates is an awesome model for billionaire charity: Warren Buffet likes it so much he is going to donate 85% of his wealth to it. Most of the money goes to biomedical (TB, AIDS, sanitation, fresh water, vaccines, orphan diseases) issues that can't really improve the market for M$ other than through brand management ... and healthier customers.

Better here than political

[tomhath]

There have been plenty of very wealthy individuals who create foundations Rockefeller [rockefelle...dation.org], Ford [fordfoundation.org], now Gates and Zuckerberg. They can do a lot of good, arguably more than Ted Turner [borgenproject.org] donating $1B to the UN.

I sure prefer to see it spent this way then surreptitiously funding political activity through tax exempt organizations [opensecrets.org] like George Soros.

Re:oh boy...

[Radtastic]

Citation definitely needed here.

This document https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/agricultural-development-strategy-overview.pdf [gatesfoundation.org] from the gates foundation would lead one to believe that they are promoting local farmers, not suppressing them.