Mark Zuckerberg, founder and chief executive of Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc., has cashed in on the stock’s recent record highs by selling about $23 million worth last week, according to security filings.
Zuckerberg sold 35,921 shares for $21.7 million, according to one filing, and 2,311 shares for $1.4 million, according to a separate one.
The sales were in accordance with a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted by Zuckerberg on Aug. 9, according to a form filed for the company’s third quarter. That plan allowed the executive to sell as many as 518,000 Class A Meta shares and 1.7 million Class B shares held by entities created to hold his shareholdings.
At the time, the plan was worth $1.3 billion.
Meta’s stock META has gained 67% this year to propel it to a market capitalization of $1.5 trillion, re- joining megacaps Nvidia Corp. NVDA, Apple Inc. AAPL and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN in the trillion-dollar-market-cap club. The stock closed at a record high of $632.68 on Dec. 11.
Rule 10b5-1 plans are set up to automatically execute transactions when certain preset conditions — such as price, volume and timing — are met. They are used by company insiders to enable them to cash out their stock without appearing to benefit from nonpublic information they are privy to as part of their role.
Zuckerberg already sold $153 million of stock in early December. In all, he has sold a record of more than $2 billion of Meta’s stock this year, according to an analysis conducted by Fortune magazine.
Meta’s stock started the year with a big surprise for investors in the form of its first-ever dividend, which was unveiled with fourth-quarter earnings in February.
In 2023, Zuckerberg sold about $400 million worth of stock, breaking a two-year period in which the stock fell sharply as the company attempted a pivot toward the metaverse, an immersive virtual world accessed using virtual reality devices that never fully materialized.
The company spent much of 2023 cleaning house before refocusing on tech infrastructure to support artificial intelligence capabilities for users and businesses in 2024. In its most recent earnings report for the third quarter, the company said it expected $38 billion to $40 billion in capital spending this year. The company’s prior outlook called for $37 billion to $40 billion.
Zuckerberg controls the majority of Meta’s voting power through his ownership of super-voting Class B shares, which carry 10 votes per share, while the Class A shares that trade on Nasdaq carry just one vote.
As of Oct. 14, Zuckerberg and his affiliates, including CZI Holdings LLC and Chan Zuckerberg Holdings LLC held 518,424 Class A shares and 343.9 million Class B shares, according to a filing.
Meta’s stock was up 0.5% early Tuesday. The S&P 500 SPX has gained about 24% this year.