The founder and CEO of Tencent, Ma 'Pony' Huateng, plans to donate 100 million shares to charity. It is a new charitable fund that is going to be established by him.
According to tech in Asia, Pony is the third richest person in China and the second richest tech boss. He is also the maker of WeChat, as he is best known now. He owns 833 million shares in a company created by him in 1998. The 100 million shares that he vowed to donate are worth US$2.14 billion at Tencent's share price as on Monday's trade closing. His personal fortune is around US$17.6 billion that makes him China's third richest person.
Jack Ma and Joe Tsai co-founded Alibaba earlier, and in 2015, they established a charitable fund. On April 19, he said that after almost 10 years of participation and exploration in philanthropic activities, he has now found a new way of giving back to the society. Ma feels that the best way to do it is by continuing to do it over a longer term and in a more organized way. Taking help from a professional team to oversee these projects is also going to help enhance the management's efficiency.
His plans with the donated money over an unspecified period of time are going to go towards particular projects, which include education, healthcare, environmental protection and other philanthropic efforts in Mainland China. Some of it will also be used for basic global science research and innovation projects relating to cutting-edge technologies. The donated sum will somehow rise or fall depending on Tencent's stock's fortune.
Ma is taking a philanthropical approach similar to that of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg had created a fund in December as a private company that benefits from 99 percent of the Facebook shares owned by him.