Mark Zuckerberg has donated $500m (£308m) of shares in Facebook, the social network company he co-founded, to charity.
The 28 year-old announced on Wednesday that he has given 18m shares in Facebook to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation to “look for areas in education and health to focus on”.
The foundation serves the San Mateo and Santa Clara counties in California with the aim of “solving the most challenging problems, improving the quality of life and inspiring greater civic participation throughout the region”.
The donation from Mr zuckerberg is his second in the past two years. In 2010, he gave a $100m grant to fund investment in troubled schools in Newark, New Jersey.
Mr Zuckerberg’s shares in Facebook are worth around $11bn.
However, he is one of a number of entrepreneurs that has pledged to give away more than half of his fortune through The Giving Pledge.
Source: The Telegraph
Photo: jdlasica
