Mark Zuckerberg Pledges Most of $6 Billion Fortune to Charity

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, one of the world's youngest billionaires, has pledged most of his fortune to charity.

/ CBS

One of the world's youngest billionaires, 26-year-old Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has pledged to donate at least half of his estimated $6 billion fortune to charity. 

PICTURES: Billionaires Giving Back

Zuckerberg, along with junk bond pioneer Michael Milken and AOL co-founder Steve Case, are among 17of America's richest people who have added their names to a growing list of the planet's wealthiest people joining the Giving Pledge, a promissory group founded by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates which seeks to get billionaires to publicly pledge large chunks of their fortunes to charity and not their heirs.

In a release on the Pledge's website, Zuckerberg explained why, among other things, he pledged $100 million to the Newark, N.J., public school system earlier this year.

"People wait until late in their career to give back. But why wait when there is so much to be done?" Zuckerberg said. "With a generation of younger folks who have thrived on the success of their companies, there is a big opportunity for many of us to give back earlier in our lifetime and see the impact of our philanthropic efforts."

The Giving Pledge comes in part from Buffett's belief that heirs waste money, an idea he gained from steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie's book "The Gospel of Wealth," reports The Wall Street Journal.

Starting last year, Gates, his wife Melinda, Buffett and other wealthy individuals hosted a series of dinners for billionaires to discuss setting up the pledge, the journal reports. That led to an announcement in June of the pledge and its earliest signers.

Other members of the pledge include Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison, film director George Lucas, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Ted Turner.

After the initial Giving Pledge list came out, some critics decried it as a public-relations stunt, or the product of tax-breaks that are hurting the government's ability to offer critical services, reports the Journal.

However, the group's real reason for the public pronouncements of the Pledge is the idea that giving is contagious, said Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University, in the press release.

"Research shows that when people know that others are giving, they are themselves more likely to give," Singer said. "So publicly pledging to give will encourage others to give. This holds true for billionaires and for those of us who aren't anywhere near that level of wealth. We can all make a difference, and play our part in making the world a better place."

[jhalsey117]

Huh. And here I'd heard that Mark's fortune was 13.5 billion. Well either way, the poor and needy are going to make bank when Mark signs that check. He'll have a solid <a href="http://www.davisanddavisllc.com">audit defense</a> in case his taxes come into question in the coming years.

[BillyElroy]

True philanthropy is anonymous. Otherwise, it appears as marketing.

[howardsarin]

What an astonishingly cold-hearted set of responses! People announce that they are donating money, and your response is to criticize? Do you heckle next to the Salvation Army bell-ringer, too?

FWIW, some of you naysayers should check out the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/. You may not like the way Gates made his money -- and that goes double for Mike Milken -- but their charities are for real.

[jnostromo]

Pablum for the masses..who will eat it up while they continue to struggle to survive day to day...

[case10000]

Take $1 Billion and fix FacBook.

[skepticalJM]

Their idea is simple: keep the Masters in charge by showing how generous they are. Keep the disease going while you treat the symptoms. They don't realize that if the patient dies so will they. This society is dying, and they are killing it with their system of greed. When it dies a new system of greed will spring up to replace the present Masters with a new set; so on and on it goes... people never learn to control their own stupidity.

[pragmatist1]

A very convenient excuse to avoid paying taxes into our system, where the monies would better serve our economy.

[pragmatist1]

I hope the monies remain in this country and help the truly poor and needy here and don't wind up in the hands of charity-mongers in third world nations that end up being a waste, since it rarely, if ever, improves the quality of life, including literacy for those living in these countries.

[pbaird2]

So many isolationaists out there that still think the USA can exist in a vacuum. I applaud these billionaires and their efforts to give back some of the largesse they have amassed under the free-market system. As their companies are global, so should their philanthropy be global; their profits came from all over the world, not just from Americans. Now, if they wealthiest citizens would concede they should not be getting preferrential tax treatment, we could also solve the deficit problems.

[jnostromo]

"Global economy" is just another form of opium for the masses..

[stn_sage]

All these billionaires are doing is trying to get favorable press!! How much of their monies are ACTUALLY being distributed to set up soup kitchens or low income housing, or a maze of other things that are needed?
Answer: very little! These are the same people who have RUINED this planet amassing their fortunes, who have created homelessness and poverty, who destroy the natural environment, et cetera! They know we're going past the 'tipping point' now, and in the near future, there's going to be a LOT of problems, and people are going to be looking for justice! These people are now trying to pretend they're 'good guys' before the proverbial '---- hit's the fan! This man is not so much responsible for destruction because of the industry he's in, but most others are! No amount of charity from these people (billionaires) will make up for the way THEIR BAD DECISIONS have RUINED this world! It's not the poor that's the problem! The poor have next to no power, it's the wealthy that have made the decisions, and ran the world into the ground!
The public should NEVER forget that!

[rl1459]

Negative nancy.