CALIFORNIA — Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday that he and his wife have a new baby girl named Max — and they also plan to give away 99% of his Facebook stock.
In announcing their daughter’s birth, the couple also pledged to donate their Facebook stock — worth about $45 billion — “during our lives” to promote equality and the human potential.
In the letter addressed to Max, Zuckerberg talked about the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative:
“As you begin the next generation of the Chan Zuckerberg family, we also begin the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to join people across the world to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation. Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.”
Zuckerberg made the stock giveaway official in a filing with the SEC. According to Forbes, the filing says:
“On December 1, 2015, our Founder, Chairman and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that, during his lifetime, he will gift or otherwise direct substantially all of his shares of Facebook stock, or the net after-tax proceeds from sales of such shares, to further the mission of advancing human potential and promoting equality by means of philanthropic, public advocacy, and other activities for the public good. For this purpose, Mr. Zuckerberg has established a new entity, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, LLC, and he will control the voting and disposition of any shares held by such entity.”
Zuckerberg, 31, and Priscilla Chan, 30, first met at a fraternity party while students at Harvard.
They married nine years later in 2012, the day after Facebook’s initial public offering.
The couple first announced the pregnancy in July with an unusually personal post on Facebook.
Zuckerberg revealed he and Chan had three miscarriages, and said he hoped talking about the experience would help others going through the same thing.
Zuckerberg drew attention again in November when he announced he would take two months of paternity leave.
The choice was surprising for a highly visible CEO, and could set a positive example for other parents working in high-stress jobs.
Facebook has long offered its U.S. employees four months of parental leave.
Last week, it announced it was extending paternal leave to four months for all male Facebook employees around the world.
Technology companies competing for talent have been bumping up their parental leave policies over the past year, including Netflix and Microsoft.
Facebook has not yet announced if there will be an interim CEO while Zuckerberg is out.
Chan is taking an undisclosed amount of maternity leave from her job as a practicing pediatrician and position as CEO of The Primary School.
The former teacher launched the free private school earlier this year with Zuckerberg.
The new model of school combines healthcare and education for underserved children.
Baby Max won’t be able to join Facebook for another 13 years, the minimum age for opening an account.
Federal laws prohibit collecting personal data on children under 13 years old.
But if Zuckerberg and Chan are like most other new parents, they’ll likely bombard their friends and family with baby photos on the social network.
Zuckerberg ended the letter discussing what will happen over the next few years:
“As we become parents and enter this next chapter of our lives, we want to share our deep appreciation for everyone who makes this possible.
We can do this work only because we have a strong global community behind us. Building Facebook has created resources to improve the world for the next generation. Every member of the Facebook community is playing a part in this work.
We can make progress towards these opportunities only by standing on the shoulders of experts — our mentors, partners and many incredible people whose contributions built these fields.
And we can only focus on serving this community and this mission because we are surrounded by loving family, supportive friends and amazing colleagues. We hope you will have such deep and inspiring relationships in your life too.
Max, we love you and feel a great responsibility to leave the world a better place for you and all children. We wish you a life filled with the same love, hope and joy you give us. We can’t wait to see what you bring to this world.”