Mark Zuckerberg, the Chairman and CEO of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META), has recently sold a significant portion of the company's Class A common stock. According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Zuckerberg sold shares valued at approximately $7.7 million on December 18, 2024. The sale comes as Meta's stock trades near its 52-week high of $638.40, with the company's market capitalization reaching $1.52 trillion. InvestingPro analysis shows Meta's stock has delivered an impressive 75.67% return year-to-date.
The transactions were carried out by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Foundation under a pre-established trading plan. The stock sales occurred at prices ranging from $601.25 to $626.29 per share. Following these transactions, Zuckerberg, through the foundation, continues to hold a substantial number of shares in the company.
These sales are part of a broader strategy managed by the foundation, which aims to leverage its holdings in Meta for philanthropic purposes. Despite these sales, Zuckerberg maintains significant control over Meta, holding a large number of Class B shares through various trusts and holdings.
In other recent news, Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP). experienced a notable stock decline in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision to hear a bid by TikTok and its parent company ByteDance to block a law potentially affecting the short-video app's operations. Meanwhile, Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META). saw resilience in its shares amidst broader industry concerns. These developments add complexity to the social media landscape, with potential implications for companies like Snap and Meta.
In the same vein, Meta's Instagram platform is projected to constitute 50% of the company's U.S. advertising revenue in the near future, according to estimates from Emarketer. This highlights Instagram's growing importance to Meta's operations and revenue generation. Furthermore, Meta's Irish subsidiary was recently fined $264 million over a data breach affecting 29 million users globally.
In other developments, analysts from Truist Securities expressed a positive outlook on Meta's prospects, upgrading their price target for the company to $700. Their confidence is underpinned by Meta's strong financial health, robust revenue growth, and impressive gross profit margins. However, this comes amidst a fine imposed on Meta's Irish unit over a data breach, highlighting the challenges faced by the company in ensuring data protection. These are some of the recent developments that investors should keep an eye on.
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