Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made history today.
He is the youngest person in American history to make a donation in the amount of 100 million dollars.
The news broke just a day before the  2010 Forbes 400 Rich List ranked  Zuckerberg  as the 35th richest person in the world. The list claimed Zuckerberg made a whopping 6.9 billion dollars for the year. He beat Apple CEO Steve Jobs,  who came in at #42.  The recent press comes conveniently in time for the debut of the David Fincher film,  The Social Network which will be in theaters in October.
On Friday Zuckerberg will appear  on Oprah to  announce his $100 million pledge to the Newark school system. The New York Times reported that in conjunction with the donation, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has agreed to cede some control of the state’s public school system to Newark Mayor Cory Booker, including the power to name a new superintendent, though Christie would retain the right to take back control.
Approximately one in four residents of Newark, a city of about 280,000, live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  The city’s annual education budget is about $940 million, according to the school district website.
Of the 164 chronically failing public schools in New Jersey, 38 are in Newark, According to Derrell Bradford, executive director of¬† Excellent Education for Everyone . Excellent Education for Everyone defines failing schools as those where 40 % or more of the students fail state math and language tests for two years, or 65 % fail either test. There is no question that Zuckerberg’s donation will aid to enhance the quality of pubic school education in NJ. Although the donation hasn’t been officially announced , many financial experts have questions as to how Zuckerberg will come up with the funds.
Zuckerberg is worth $6.9 billion, but that is based on his ownership of Facebook. It is most likely that Zuckerberg does not have millions of dollars in cash on hand. It is reported that he lives in a  modest rented home in Silicon Valley. Financial experts have stated that he is planning to pledge his Facebook shares instead of cash-money.
Forbes writer Steve Bertoni posed several¬† interesting questions¬† regarding Zuckerberg’s 100 million dollar pledge. In a recent article Bertoni wrote, “the trouble is that these shares are not listed on a registered exchange. Past Facebook transactions have occurred through private equity deals or have traded on exchanges like SecondMarket, which specialize in unregistered, hard-to-trade securities.” Bertoni went on to explain that “these markets for unregistered shares are opaque and thinly traded. The current SecondMarket bid for shares of Facebook is $65‚Äìthat puts a $28.6 billion valuation on Facebook; much richer than recent estimates of around $23 billion. The market price seems inflated.”
Wall Street and the whole world will be watching Oprah tomorrow to find out just exactly how Zuckerberg will intend to carry out this epoch-making act of philanthropy.
By: Nana-Adwoa Ofori
