Mark Zuckerberg has sold Facebook shares every business day since November, unloading 9.4 million shares worth $2.8 billion over the past year.
Zuckerberg, 37, has decreased his stake in Facebook from 28% at the time of the company’s initial public offering in May 2012 to about 14%, according to Forbes.
He personally has taken home a total of around $2.1 billion from the sales his stock over the years and about $200 million after taxes from recent sales.
Forbes estimated Zuckerberg and his philanthropic organization the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative – which he started with his wife Priscilla Chan in 2015 – have sold more than 132 million Facebook shares worth nearly $15 billion since 2012.
Zuckerberg began regularly selling his Facebook stock in 2016 after he and his wife write a letter to their daughter Maxima pledging to give 99% of their shares over their lifetimes toward education and curing diseases.
In 2018, the Facebook CEO sold a whopping $5.3 billion worth of shares mostly through CZI. Then, in November 2019, Zuckerberg suddenly stopped selling Facebook shares.
Zuckerberg, who is worth $127 billion making him the world’s fifth richest person, resumed selling his stock on November 9, 2020.
Forbes reported that about 90% of those sales were made by CZI – through which an an estimated $11 billion in stocks have been sold in total. CZI’s political advocacy arm sold all 103,000 of its remaining Facebook shares late last year.
