Mark Zuckerberg has gotten so rich that he can fund his philanthropic foundation and retain voting control without Facebook having to issue a proposed non-voting class of stock that faced shareholder resistance. Today Facebook announced that it’s withdrawn its plan to issue Class C no-vote stock and has resolved the shareholder lawsuit seeking to block the corporate governance overhaul. 
 
 Instead, Zuckerberg says that because Facebook has become so valuable, he can sell a smaller allotment of his stake in the company to deliver plenty of capital to his Chan Zuckerberg Initiative foundation that aims to help eradicate disease and deliver personalized education to all children. 
 
 “Over the past year and a half, Facebook’s business has performed well and the value of our stock has grown to the point that I can fully fund our philanthropy and retain voting control of Facebook for 20 years or more,” Zuckerberg writes. Facebook’s share price has increased roughly 45 percent, from $117 to $170, since the Class C stock plan was announced, with Facebook now valued at $495 billion. 
 
 “We are gratified that Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg have agreed not to proceed with the reclassification we were challenging,” writes Lee Rudy, the partner at Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP that was representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit seeking to block the no-vote share creation. Zuckerberg was slated to testify in the suit later this month, but now won’t have to. “This result is a full victory for Facebook’s stockholders, and achieved everything we could have hoped to obtain by winning a permanent injunction at trial.” 
 
 “I want to be clear: this doesn’t change Priscilla and my plans to give away 99% of our Facebook shares during our lives. In fact, we now plan to accelerate our work and sell more of those shares sooner,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I anticipate selling 35-75 million Facebook shares in the next 18 months to fund our work in education, science, and advocacy.” That equates to $5.95 billion to $12.75 billion worth of Facebook shares Zuckerberg will liquidate. 
 
 When Zuckerberg announced the plan in April 2016, he wrote that being a founder-led company where he controls enough votes to always steer Facebook’s direction rather than cowing to public shareholders lets Facebook “resist the short term pressures that often hurt companies.” By issuing the non-voting shares, “I’ll be able to keep founder control of Facebook so we can continue to build for the long term, and Priscilla and I will be able to give our money to fund important work sooner.” 
 
 A spokesperson for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative told TechCrunch that this outcome is very good for the foundation, because it provides more predictability to its funding. The plan will also allow Zuckerberg to deliver cash to the CZI sooner, which its new CFO Peggy Alford will be able to allocate between its health, education and advocacy projects. 
 
 With the new plan to sell shares, it’s unclear what might happen to Zuckerberg’s iron grip on Facebook’s future in “20 years or more.” 
 
 Dropping the Class C shares plan may be seen as a blow to Facebook board member Marc Andreessen, who Bloomberg revealed had coached Zuckerberg through pushing the proposed plan through the rest of the board. But given Zuckerberg’s power, Andreessen is unlikely to be ousted unless the Facebook CEO wants him gone. 
 
 For the foreseeable future, though, Zuckerberg will have the power to shape Facebook’s decisions. His business instincts have proven wise over the years. Acquisitions he orchestrated that seemed pricey at first — like Instagram and WhatsApp — have been validated as their apps grow to multiples of their pre-buy size. And Zuckerberg’s relentless prioritization of the user experience over that of advertisers and outside developers has kept the Facebook community deeply engaged instead of pushed away with spam. 
 
 Zuckerberg’s ability to maintain power could allow him to continue to make bold or counter-intuitive decisions without shareholder interference. But the concentration of power also puts Facebook in a precarious position if Zuckerberg were to be tarnished by scandal or suddenly unable to continue his duties as CEO. 
 
 Zuckerberg warned investors when Facebook went public that “Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission.” And yet Facebook has flourished into one of the world’s most successful businesses in part because shareholders weren’t allowed to sell its ambitions short. ||||| You need to enable Javascript to play media on Bloomberg.com Play 
 
 The fortune of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Inc. (FB)’s co-founder and CEO, dropped to a new low today. 
 
 Related Story: Facebook Falls to Record Low As Lockup End Frees Shares 
 
 The 28-year-old’s net worth fell to $10.2 billion, its lowest point since the company’s May 17th initial public offering, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Facebook shares sank 6.3 percent today after the company freed up 271.1 million shares, a move that boosted the amount of stock available to trade by 60 percent. The shares closed at $19.87 in New York after dipping to a record low of $19.69 earlier in the day. 
 
 “The market is not convinced of Facebook’s future,” David Kirkpatrick, author of “The Facebook Effect,” a history of the company, said in a telephone interview, adding that Zuckerberg probably isn’t worried about the sagging value of his own shares. “He thinks of it only in terms of how it affects the company’s strategic and tactical opportunities.” 
 
 While Zuckerberg’s fortune swooned, the 40 richest people in the world added $1.9 billion to their collective net worth, as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index closed at its highest point since April. 
 
 Facebook is down 48 percent from its $38 offering price. The world’s largest social-networking company raised $16 billion in its IPO, the largest ever for a technology firm. With a market capitalization of $48 billion, Facebook has lost more than $40 billion in value since the offering, making it the worst performer among all large IPOs on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 
 
 Founders Falter 
 
 The fortunes of Facebook’s other founders also took a hit. Co-founder Christopher Hughes, 28, owns about 22 million shares of Facebook, according to a person familiar with his holdings who asked not to be named because the matter is private. His stake is worth $437 million, down almost $400 million since the IPO. 
 
 Dustin Moskovitz, 28, who started the company with Zuckerberg, Hughes and Eduardo Saverin from a dorm room at Harvard University, owns 133.7 million shares of the company’s Class B stock worth $2.7 billion, a decline of $2.4 billion. 
 
 Saverin, 30, has a $1.1 billion stake, down $960 million since the offering. According to a regulatory filing dated May 17, he owns 53.1 million shares of the company. 
 
 Facebook Inc. director Peter Thiel, who sold more than 16 million shares in the company’s initial public offering, converted more than 9 million shares to Class A from Class B, according to a document filed Aug. 10 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 
 
 Thiel, a venture capitalist and hedge-fund manager whose proceeds from the IPO topped $630 million, still holds a stake worth about $550 million. 
 
 Ashley Zandy, a spokeswoman for Facebook, declined to comment. 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: David De Jong in New York at ddejong3@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Matthew G. Miller at mmiller144@bloomberg.net
– Mark Zuckerberg is a much poorer billionaire than he was a few months ago, but he won't be joining the early investors selling off their Facebook shares. Those shares hit a new low of $17.73 yesterday, and the company took steps to assure investors that the slide will not continue, reports the Wall Street Journal. It promised Zuckerberg would not be selling any of his shares for at least a year, and outlined plans to protect the company share price when restricted stock units held by its staff become tradable shares later this year. Facebook's shares have lost more than 50% of their value since the company's May IPO amid concerns about its moneymaking ability, and analysts say it's time for Zuckerberg to act. "Clearly, he has to do something, having spent the last few years in flip-flops and a hoodie, pontificating about how Facebook is going to change the world," a crisis management expert tells the Los Angeles Times. "I think what people are going to need now is a road map that, among other things, answers the question: What is a reasonable expectation for this company's future?"