Since Facebook’s founding Mark Zuckerberg’s wife Priscilla Chan has been by his side. As Facebook has grown, Priscilla and Mark have created a family together. Find out more about the social media billionaire’s wife here!
Mark Zuckerberg, 37, is one of the most influential and controversial billionaires, best-known as the founder of Facebook. While he’s been revolutionary in the way information is shared and people stay connected, he’s also been married for nearly 10 years. The tech giant married his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan, 36, in 2012, and the pair are still together to this day! Amid their longtime romance, the pair have also worked together on a variety of projects and philanthropic efforts. Find out more about Priscilla and her relationship with Mark here!
Mark and Priscilla rehearsing for a 2016 speech. (Jeff Chiu/AP/Shutterstock)How did Mark & Priscilla meet?
Like Mark, Priscilla was also a student at Harvard University. Unlike Mark, Priscilla graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology, while the Facebook founder left school after his sophomore year to work on the website. Priscilla was raised in Quincy, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb, by Chinese immigrant parents. She started at Harvard in 2003. Priscilla revealed that the two met while she was in line for the bathroom at a party held by Mark’s fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi in a 2010 interview with The New Yorker. “He was this nerdy guy who was just a little bit out there,” she said. “I remember he had these beer glasses that said ‘pound include beer dot H.’ It’s a tag for C++. It’s like college humor but with a nerdy, computer-science appeal.”
In his 2017, Harvard commencement address, Mark revealed that he asked her out amid scandal for his early website Facemash (which is documented in the Aaron Sorkin-penned screenplay for the film The Social Network), when he expected to be expelled from school. “Everyone thought I was going to get kicked out. My parents came to help me pack. My friends threw me a going away party,” he said, via Vox. “In what must be one of the all time romantic lines, I said: ‘I’m going to get kicked out in three days, so we need to go on a date quickly.’”
After Priscilla graduated from Harvard in 2007, she moved out to Palo Alto, California with Mark. While the pair mostly keep the details of their relationship private, Mark did reveal to The New Yorker that the pair binge-watched The West Wing (the TV series written by Aaron Sorkin) together, while vacationing together in Spain.
She co-founded the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative
Priscilla and Mark started the charitable organization together in 2015, and Priscilla serves as co-CEO. The organization focuses on fostering science, education, community, and justice and opportunity partners, according to its website. The organization combines the background of technology and science with philanthropic efforts. “We pair technology, with grantmaking, impact investing, and collaboration to help accelerate the pace of progress towards an equitable future,” the CZI’s website says.
She married Mark in 2012
Mark and Priscilla tied the knot on May 19, 2012. The pair’s wedding was the day after Facebook’s IPO went public. Priscilla wore a dress designed by Claire Pettibone, who revealed that the dress cost $4,700 in an interview to The New York Times. The wedding also featured a surprise performance by Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day.
Mark and Priscilla attended the breakthrough prize ceremony together in 2019. (Christopher Victorio/imageSPACE/Shutterstock)Mark & Priscilla have 2 daughters together
Mark announced that Priscilla gave birth to the pair’s first daughter Maxima (nicknamed “Max“) in a November 2015 Facebook post. “We’re so happy to welcome our daughter Max into this world. Everyone is happy and healthy. Thank you for all your love and support through our pregnancy. There is so much joy in our little family,” he wrote.
Priscilla gave birth to the pair’s second daughter August, 4, in August 2017. August’s mom and dad wrote a letter to her in a Facebook post announcing her birth. The parent’s encouraged her to enjoy her childhood. “You only get to be a child once, so don’t spend it worrying too much about the future. You’ve got us for that, and we’ll do everything we possibly can to make sure the world is a better place for you and all children in your generation,” they wrote.
She was a doctor
After graduating from Harvard, Priscilla went to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco from 2008 to 2012. In 2015, Mark celebrated her finishing her medical residency at San Francisco General Hospital on Facebook, via CNN. “I’m so proud of you for all of the lives you’ve saved and families you’ve touched. You’re a gift to our community, and I’m looking forward to seeing you make an even bigger impact in education, health and all your work with the underserved in your next chapter,” he wrote. Her Facebook profile also listed that she was a resident physician at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.
