Mark Zuckerberg plans to donate 99% of his Facebook shares to charity

There’s good news for those causes set to benefit from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement last year that he plans to give away 99% of the wealth he holds in the company during his lifetime.

The near 16% surge in Facebook’s share price on Wall Street increased the value of his shareholding by USD $6.2bn to $47.6bn making him, according to Bloomberg, the sixth richest man on earth at the end of January 2016.

The entrepreneur’s wealth is primarily in Facebook stock, the company’s stronger-than-expected results which were released on Wednesday January 27th led to a 13% spike in Facebook shares.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates remains the world’s richest man, with a net worth of $78bn, followed by Amancio Ortega, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Carlos Slim and then comes Zuckerberg.

After the birth of his first child, the social media founder announced that he will give away 99% of his Facebook shares, giving the money to charitable organisations.

Revenues in the final quarter rose by more than 50% to $5.8bn compared to the same period in 2014. Overall profits for the year amounted to $3.7bn on revenues of close to $18bn. Net profits rose to €1.4bn

Critically, Facebook’s advertising revenues rose by an even faster 57% and would have been higher but for the strength of the dollar.

Mobile advertising from its main app, and its Messenger and Instagram applications now account for about 80% of all Facebook’s income.

The key monthly active users metric rose by 14% to 1.59 billion users.

“2015 was a great year for Facebook. Our community continued to grow and our business is thriving,” said Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO.

Zuckerberg concluded saying, “We continue to invest in better serving our community, building our business, and connecting the world.”

Source: http://www.newstalk.com/