U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is now officially a billionaire. Until now, Mr. Zuckerberg has been staggeringly rich only on paper.
On Tuesday, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the 28-year-old founder completed the sale of 30.2 million Facebook shares at $37.58 each. That will give Mr. Zuckerberg a not insubstantial $1,134,916,000 in cash.
Previously only a paper billionaire, he is now a real billionaire.
Other Facebook employees will have to wait. The S.E.C. maintains a 180-day lockup period for employees, their friends and family, and venture capitalists.
The transaction appears to have been done so Mr. Zuckerberg can pay his taxes, an exception to the lockup rule. If Mr. Zuckerberg decides in the future to go on a shopping spree and buy, say, a small country, he still owns more than 500 million shares, which are worth over $15 billion even as the price dips.
It’s a good job Mr. Zuckerberg didn’t wait until Wednesday to sell his first chunk of shares. The company stock closed at $32 even, which would have netted him only $966 million. And as we all know, being a millionaire isn’t cool. A billionaire, on the other hand, now that’s cool.