WSJ reported that some netizens defended the move.
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Since we announced this a couple days ago, many people have asked about what were planning to focus on and how were structuring our work, Zuckerberg acknowledged in a Facebook post Thursday afternoon. The comment garnered hundreds of likes.
The LLC will provide no tax benefits to Zuckerberg or Dr. Chan when they begin transferring 99 percent of their shares to the Initiative, but Zuckerberg said it’ll help them “gain flexibility to execute our mission more effectively”.
Is Zuckerberg’s generosity altruistic?
The New York Times points out that Zuckerberg had used LLCs in the past for their other community-oriented projects such as the MasteryConnect, an educational measurement company where they invested $5 million in September through the Zuckerberg Education Ventures LLC.
“They are not behaving like a traditional philanthropy,”said Leslie Lenkowsky, professor of public affairs and philanthropy at Indiana University”.
Mr Zuckerberg is far from the first tech titan to pledge billions to philanthropic activities, but he is following a slightly different path to Bill Gates, Microsoft’s founder.
Non-profit foundations like Gates’s do not pay tax, whereas the Facebook chief executive’s vehicle would pay tax on any profit generated.
Mr Zuckerberg will give away 99% of his stake in Facebook, worth $45bn (£30bn), to fund the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Zuckerberg is now the CEO of the largest social media platform in the entire world and he has decided that he will either sell or give up $1 billion in shares in the coming three years.
On the note posted regarding the issue, it was stated that Zuckerberg will gift or otherwise direct substantially all of his Facebook stock shares or the net after tax proceeds from the sales of those shares.
Indeed, one of Zuckerberg’s earliest charitable efforts, a $100 million donation to the impoverished public school system in Newark, N.J., is considered a failure that threw money at a problem without addressing the underlying causes – something Zuckerberg himself has publicly acknowledged.
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He’s also made some money cashing in Facebook shares. This whole community has been so loving and supportive. The happy couple took to Facebook on Tuesday to share their sentiments about being proud new parents.
