(Bloomberg) — Mark Zuckerberg is making a rare move by selling Meta Platforms Inc. stock for the first time in two years, following the company’s rapid recovery from a tumultuous 2022.
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The Meta co-founder’s trust, as well as entities for his charitable and political giving, offloaded about 682,000 shares worth almost $185 million in November through trading plans, with the latest disclosed Wednesday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from regulatory filings. This marks the first time entities that manage Zuckerberg’s fortune have sold shares since November 2021.
Meta surged 172% this year through the end of November, outperforming all major US tech companies other than Nvidia Corp. This has helped maximize the proceeds for Zuckerberg’s activities outside Meta, such as venture capital, scientific research, and impact investments.
While he has regularly offloaded blocks of Meta stock over the past decade, Zuckerberg didn’t sell a single share in 2022, when catastrophic quarterly results led to a major stock wipeout and Meta’s worst annual performance since its 2012 IPO.
Meta’s stock is now approaching the record highs set in 2021, when Zuckerberg and his charitable foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, sold more than $1 billion of the Menlo Park, California-based company’s shares. The 39-year-old still holds about 13% of Meta, making up almost all of his $117.7 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, 38, have pledged to allocate 99% of their wealth to philanthropic causes during their lifetimes, such as promoting equality and curing diseases. More than half of the recent Meta stock sales came from shares controlled by their namesake foundation.
The smallest portion of the selling spree – about $19 million — went to the advocacy arm of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which has funded efforts to mobilize voters and advance immigration reform.
Earlier this year, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative pledged $250 million to establish a biomedical research hub in Chicago. It previously backed efforts to address the San Francisco Bay area’s housing shortage and made early-stage investments to train software developers in Africa.
Founded in 2015, the Palo Alto, California-based foundation has net assets of about $6.3 billion and is led by both Zuckerberg and Chan, according to latest filings. Meta’s stock has risen more than 200% since they pledged eight years ago to give away most of their fortune.
–With assistance from Pui Gwen Yeung.
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