Sheryl Sandberg Sold $18 Million Of Facebook Stock On Thursday
Since February, she's sold over $152 million worth of shares, at prices ranging from about $58 per share to a little over $72, according to insider trading records tracked by Morningstar.
These are scheduled transactions, meaning she's selling regularly, not in response to events going on at the company. There's nothing improper when executives liquidate their corporate stock in this way.
She's actually been selling stocks in $17 million-or-so chunks, on automatic sales since 2012, according to Nasdaq's insider trading records.
So Thursday's sale isn't out of the ordinary for her. We're simply taking a moment to marvel at the corporate world, where a top executive at a hot company can lay her hands on nearly $20 million in a month on a regular basis.
Even after Thursday's sale, Sandberg still owns nearly 8 million shares of Facebook, the SEC form says.
But where she's spending the cash is anyone's guess. She is likely quietly supporting some of the many charities close to her heart, including her own Lean In organization. Although she's known as a generous philanthropist, she's fairly secretive about how much she money she gives away and to whom.
We do know that she's planning on giving most of her money away. In May, Sandberg joined Bill Gates' and Warren Buffet's The Giving Pledge, vowing to give at least half of her wealth to philanthropy. However she hasn't made her Pledge letter public yet. Sometimes in those letters, the givers explain why they've taken the pledge and what types of charities they support.
We also know that she's got plenty to give. Forbes estimates that she's worth just about $1 billion.