Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced two major status updates Tuesday: He and his wife have a newborn daughter and they plan to donate most of their Facebook wealth.
Zuckerberg's wife, Priscilla Chan, gave birth to a 7-pound, 8-ounce daughter last week. But the couple didn't put out the news until Tuesday, when Zuckerberg posted it on — of course — Facebook.
"Priscilla and I are so happy to welcome our daughter Max into this world!" Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post Tuesday afternoon.
The social media mogul and his wife also posted a long letter to his daughter, expressing how she gives them hope for the future: "Your new life is full of promise, and we hope you will be happy and healthy so you can explore it fully."
But they also wrote how the world could better allocate resources to fight some of its most intractable problems, like disease and inequality. And in the letter, they committed to giving nearly all of their shares in Facebook, valued at $45 billion, to the mission of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
"We know this is a small contribution compared to all the resources and talents of those already working on these issues. But we want to do what we can, working alongside many others," they wrote in the letter.
Facebook's Vice President Colin Stretch filed paperwork for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative with the Security and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.
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"On December 1, 2015, our Founder, Chairman and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that, during his lifetime, he will gift or otherwise direct substantially all of his shares of Facebook stock or the net after-tax proceeds from sales of such shares" Stretch wrote in the filing, "to further the mission of advancing human potential and promoting equality by means of philanthropic, public advocacy, and other activities for the public good."
The filing outlines Zuckerberg's plans for creating the charity. He plans to sell or gift no more than $1 billion of Facebook stock each year for the next three years.
And while most of Zuckerberg's shares will be gifted, he will continue to retain his majority hold in the company along with his voting power, according to the filing. The filing ends by noting that Zuckerberg owns approximately 4 million shares of Class A common stock and approximately 419 million shares of Class B common stock. Chan wasn't mentioned.
Ines Bebea and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
