Mark Zuckerberg sold more than $1 billion Facebook stocks last year

Lima : Mark Zuckerberg, chairman and CEO of Facebook, speaks at the CEO summit during the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016. AP/PTI(AP11_19_2016_000287B)

Facebook recently released its annual proxy statement, according to which Mark Zukerbeg has sold more than USD 1 billion worth of Facebook stock in the past year. He's been doing that to help fund his new philanthropic investment vehicle, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

According to the filing, Zuckerberg now has about 9.6 million fewer shares at the end of March than he did one year ago. Those shares would be valued at more than USD 1.3 billion based on Facebook’s closing share price on Friday according to a report by recode.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is a philanthropic investment vehicle that Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan announced in late 2015 after the birth of their daughter.

The couple’s first major endeavour is a USD 3 billion commitment over the next decade to fund research to try and cure all diseases.

Despite his big stock sale, Zuckerberg still controls 59.7 percent of Facebook’s voting power. And Mark Zuckerberg according to Forbes has a present net worth at more than USD 58 billion.