Mark Zuckerberg Rakes In $3.3 Billion From Facebook Stock Options

Image via Flickr/ Mark Zuckerberg

Making $3.3 billion has never been so easy. With the hard part of founding Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) behind him, CEO Mark Zuckerberg raked in this massive sum last year by exercising some stock options following the social media juggernaut’s IPO, the Associated Press reports. Zuckerberg’s $3.3 billion take in 2013 represented a jump from the mere $2.3 billion he hauled in the previous year from exercising options.

Regulatory documents filed by Facebook and reviewed by the AP revealed the stock options transaction by Zuckerberg. The AP reports Zuckerberg’s tax burden was so large he sold about 40 million of the 60 million Facebook shares he exercised to pay Uncle Sam for the attached tax bill. The Facebook chief executive, who shas yet to mark his thirtieth birthday, donated millions of shares of Facebook to a Silicon Valley charity in a gift estimated at around $1 billion in value.

Zuckerberg exercised his options and sold his Facebook shares after leading the company back from tough times to its current valuation. After struggling through a period when critics questioned the Facebook mobile strategy, company stock has gained 140 percent in value between April 2013 and April 2014. Investors who bought into the company at the May 2012 IPO price of $38 now hold stock valued over $61 per share.

According to the documents reviewed by the AP, Zuckerberg won’t be able to have another billion-dollar windfall by pressing the “sell” button on a stock trading app after exercising options. Though he still holds over $25 billion in Facebook stock, his options in the social network he founded at Harvard have been exhausted. Between the tax man and California charities, there are undoubtedly many people rueing this bit of reality.