Facebook founder donates $100 mn to Newark schools

NEW YORK - Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is donating $100 million to the school system in Newark, New Jersey, one of the poorest in the country, it was announced Thursday.

The huge donation came just days before the release in the US of a major Hollywood film about the founding of Facebook, which portrays Zuckerberg in a negative light. It coincided with the release of the Forbes rich list, which named the 26-year-old tech titan as the 35th richest person in America, with a fortune of $6.9 billion.

The New York Times reported that the gift is just the initial donation of an education foundation that Zuckerberg is starting and is by far the largest charitable contribution ever made by the Facebook founder.

The Newark school system is notorious for being one of the worst in the US. It was taken over by the state in 1995 after the New Jersey governor officially declared it a failure.