(Jan 4): Mark Zuckerberg sold nearly half a billion dollars of Meta Platforms Inc shares in the final two months of 2023, after a two-year hiatus in which the company’s stock price hit its lowest in seven years.

The Meta chief executive sold shares on every trading day between Nov 1 and the end of the year, unloading nearly 1.28 million shares for about US$428 million (RM1.99 billion), according to a Tuesday regulatory filing.

On average, each sale took in US$10.4 million, with the largest on Dec 28 at US$17.1 million.

Before this period, Zuckerberg had not sold Meta shares since November 2021. The company’s share price rebounded 194% last year from a seven-year low near the end of 2022. Meta shares outperformed those of every other major technology giant except Nvidia Corp last year, and is now near its September 2021 record high.