By Martín Obyrne
Desde que Facebook is publicly traded, that is, since May 2012, Mark Zuckerberg you have sold shares of your company for a value of almost $ 15 billion dollars. Of this, about $ 2 billion after taxes he has received in cash, for his personal disposal. 98% of the fortune of Zuckerberg and his wife still rests in the securities of Facebook. Zuckerberg and Bezos stand out among billionaires who divest, as part of a booming stock market trend.
The charismatic young man, who became famous as a university student, and which positioned its social network as a global benchmark, has resumed this type of operations in the stock market this year. Despite the crisis, in 2020 the company’s income had grown 22%, billing 85,965 million dollars. “People and companies have continued to use our services during these difficult times,” said the multinational, which increased its net profit in the first quarter of 2021 by 94%.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who at the beginning of July left the CEO position to Andy Jassy, one of his first collaborators in a Seattle workshop, also resorts to selling shares to increase his cash flow. This allows him to diversify his portfolio, and establish himself as the richest man in the world, above figures such as Elon Musk and Bernard Arnault, with a heritage of almost 200,000 million in US currency.
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What are Zuckerberg and Bezos doing with so much money?
Zuckerberg, that downloads shares practically daily Since last November 9, 2020, it has allocated 90% of the cash to its philanthropic and advocacy organization, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). Together with his wife Priscilla, -and on behalf of his daughters Max and August-, he has been committed to the long term since 2016 “To work for education and the cure of diseases in the world.”
However, the Zuckerberg and Bezos figures are not comparable. Although the former also has a real estate portfolio with sumptuous properties, its numbers are lower than those of the latter. Since Amazon’s IPO (initial public offering) in 1997, Bezos has divested $ 27 billion, of which only $ 10 billion last year. Following the dissolution of their conjugal union in 2019, their participation in the popular digital marketplace it had decreased from 16 to 10%.
One of the projects in which the personality of the e-commerce scene invests its cash is in the Blue Origin space capsule, in which he himself will travel to space, next Tuesday, July 19. The mission hopes to go further than the 50 miles recently traveled by a Virgin Galactic spacecraft, carrying the eccentric Richard Branson on board. “Only 4% of the world recognizes the 80 kilometer limit like the beginning of space ”, Bezos said dismissively.
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