--- title: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Donates $25 Million to Fight Ebola description: Social network’s CEO and founder makes donation to the Center of Disease Control Foundation canonical: https://time.com/3506341/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ebola/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-14T15:06:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:00:28.663Z article:section: Health og:title: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Donates $25 Million to Fight Ebola og:description: Social network’s CEO and founder makes donation to the Center of Disease Control Foundation og:url: https://time.com/3506341/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ebola/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b96c3af21e52f64/698760ade53aba71264d501c/mark-zuckerberg.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Facebook founder Mark Zuckenberg speaks to media after the meeting with Indonesian President-elect Joko Widodo in Jakarta, Indonesia on October 13, 2014. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Donates $25 Million to Fight Ebola twitter:description: Social network’s CEO and founder makes donation to the Center of Disease Control Foundation twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b96c3af21e52f64/698760ade53aba71264d501c/mark-zuckerberg.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Donates $25 Million to Fight Ebola ## Video: How Ebola is Changing Liberia [Watch (HLS stream): How Ebola is Changing Liberia](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bIJG7Y1S.m3u8) (1:35)  _Published 2014-10-01. TIME's Africa bureau chief Aryn Baker discusses everyday life in the densely packed seaside city of Monrovia, amid chlorine, thermometers and rubber boots – key tools in the fight against the Ebola outbreak._ by [Fortune / John Kell](https://time.com/author/fortune/) ## Fortune / John Kell Fortune Oct 14, 2014 3:06 PM UTC  Facebook founder Mark Zuckenberg speaks to media after the meeting with Indonesian President-elect Joko Widodo in Jakarta, Indonesia on October 13, 2014. Facebook founder Mark Zuckenberg speaks to media after the meeting with Indonesian President-elect Joko Widodo in Jakarta, Indonesia on October 13, 2014.Anadolu Agency—Getty Images by [Fortune / John Kell](https://time.com/author/fortune/) ## Fortune / John Kell Fortune Oct 14, 2014 3:06 PM UTC Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced he will donate $25 million to the Center of Disease Control Foundation, funds meant to help the agency fight Ebola. “The Ebola epidemic is at a critical turning point,” Zuckerberg said in a post on Facebook. “We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn’t spread further and become a long term global health crisis that we end up fighting for decades at large scale, like HIV or polio.” Zuckerberg, who is donating the funds along with his wife Priscilla, said he believed such grants could “directly help the frontline responders” that are responsible for setting up care centers, training local staff and identifying Ebola cases. The 2014 Ebola epidemic is already the [largest in history](http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/), according to the CDC, affecting multiple countries in West Africa. While the CDC says the risk of an Ebola outbreak in the U.S. is very low, fears have escalated, especially after a travel-associated case was diagnosed at the end of September and shortly afterward, a healthcare worker at a Texas hospital who provided care for that patient also tested positive. The patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, [died last week](http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/12/health/ebola/index.html). Zuckerberg isn’t the first deep-pocketed tech titan to donate to the cause. Last month, Bill Gates’s foundation pledged [$50 billion to fight the viral outbreak in West Africa](http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2014/09/Gates-Foundation-Commits-$50%20Million-to-Support-Emergency-Response-to-Ebola). The earliest grants from the Gates Foundation were made to the World Health Organization for emergency operations and research and development and to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF to support Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to buy essential medical supplies and coordinate response activities. [_This article originally appeared on Fortune.com_](http://fortune.com/2014/10/14/facebooks-mark-zuckerberg-donates-25-million-to-fight-ebola/?utm%5Fcontent=buffer3c254&utm%5Fmedium=social&utm%5Fsource=twitter.com&utm%5Fcampaign=buffer) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3506341/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ebola/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3506341/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ebola/"},"headline":"Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Donates $25 Million to Fight Ebola","datePublished":"2014-10-14T15:06:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:00:28.663Z","description":"Social network’s CEO and founder makes donation to the Center of Disease Control Foundation","url":"https://time.com/3506341/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ebola/","keywords":["ebola","facebook","Disease","Mark Zuckerberg","donation"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b96c3af21e52f64/698760ade53aba71264d501c/mark-zuckerberg.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Fortune / John Kell"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b96c3af21e52f64/698760ade53aba71264d501c/mark-zuckerberg.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Facebook founder Mark Zuckenberg speaks to media after the meeting with Indonesian President-elect Joko Widodo in Jakarta, Indonesia on October 13, 2014.","caption":"Facebook founder Mark Zuckenberg speaks to media after the meeting with Indonesian President-elect Joko Widodo in Jakarta, Indonesia on October 13, 2014.","creditText":"Anadolu Agency—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/ebola/","name":"ebola"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3506341/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ebola/","name":"Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Donates $25 Million to Fight Ebola"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Contact Tracing: How To Trace The Spread of Ebola","description":"Health officials in the US are using a method known as contact tracing, to see who is at risk from Ebola.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/EJ3m56cA/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-10-02T18:25:06.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EJ3m56cA.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3506341/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ebola/","duration":"PT1M49S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3506341/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ebola/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Watch One Man’s Story of Surviving Ebola","description":"Watch One Man’s Story of Surviving Ebola","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/XfeUoCr9/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-10-03T18:55:32.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/XfeUoCr9.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3506341/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ebola/","duration":"PT1M32S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3506341/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ebola/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"How Ebola is Changing Liberia","description":"TIME's Africa bureau chief Aryn Baker discusses everyday life in the densely packed seaside city of Monrovia, amid chlorine, thermometers and rubber boots – key tools in the fight against the Ebola outbreak.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bIJG7Y1S/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-10-01T13:28:30.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bIJG7Y1S.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3506341/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ebola/","duration":"PT1M35S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3506341/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-ebola/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```