Some great giveaways are not as charitable as they might appear

Outlook

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan (Kimberly White/Getty Images for Breakthrough Prize)

Everyone who is anyone wants to click “like” on the unveiling of plans by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan to give the lion’s share of their vast fortune away.

The announcement came via a letter to their new daughter, Max, published on Mr Zuckerberg’s other child, Facebook.

Celebrities, politicians and business types were joined by almost 1.5 million others with a roar of approval.

The couple’s gesture is indeed a princely one. Billions of dollars look set to pour into their new foundation, which is dedicated to battling against the grotesque inequality that blights the world and sees billions making less in a year than they do in a few seconds.

It will partner with schools, health centres, parent groups and local governments. It wants to ensure children are “well fed and cared for, starting young”. It aims to treat a myriad of inequities with the aim of providing the sort of opportunities that Max will enjoy to all.

The gesture is a very American one; and it follows similar pledges from Bill and Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett. And it sounds wonderful.

Anyone doubting it might expect to come in for some of the cyberbullying that is one of the dark sides of Facebook. Why would anyone criticise such a gift to the world?

The thing is, gifts, and particularly gifts like this, rarely come without strings. While the foundation will go out to bat for good causes, and is an apparent exercise in idealism, it is also an exercise in power.

The couple are targeting causes of interest to them; their foundation will be accountable to them (and presumably baby Max) and it will act as directed by them, or at least by their people.

It is also true that there is not a whole lot we could do about it if the Zuckerberg-Chan foundation travels down rather less admirable avenues over time.

If you want an example of the flip side of the coin, there is the road taken by their countrymen, the Koch brothers, who are currently engaged in a more or less naked attempt to buy the American political system.

Or even the Premier Leagure’s billionaire owners, who have bought control of our national obsession, spending their fortunes on the buying of and paying for players as trophies (and in their pursuit). With its multibillion-pound TV contracts, it is money football scarcely needs, but is getting anyway.

Even if Mr Zuckerberg’s more admirable largesse is an investment in saving the conscience of the top 1 per cent, it is being used for a far better purpose than the above.

So it is not really Mr Zuckerberg and Ms Chan I am criticising here. Better they do this than buy a superyacht or a new plane. It is more the system that creates them, and their foundation, and that perpetuates the inequality they have set it against. This foundation may help to alleviate some of its symptoms, but as for the causes? That’s rather more doubtful.

Thanks, Mr Porsche ... the workers will be reassured

Another member of the 1 per cent apparently standing with the 99 per cent is Wolfgang Porsche, the chairman of Porsche Automobil Holding and a Volkswagen board member. He’s been all but silent since it emerged that the carmaker had installed devices designed to cheat emissions tests in some of its cars.

The scandal has metastasised around the world and into most of the markets in which the company operates. India is just the latest. The fallout from it might explain why Mr Porsche has sought to portray himself as being “with the workers”. In a statement issued through the company’s works council he said that jobs were “a valuable asset … This asset mustn’t be squandered”. So we’re all in this together.

Call me a cynic, but as the company struggles to right itself while bracing for some huge financial penalties, the last thing Mr Porsche and his managers need is any industrial strife. His words should therefore be seen in that context.

He says that he is of the “rock solid conviction” that the company can emerge from the crisis. And it can. But there will be more pain to come. The two week’s enforced leave for staff at the company’s iconic Wolfsburg plant, due to falling revenue, is just a down-payment on the ultimate price they will pay for the misdeeds and mistakes of others.

When will the tills ring again for Morrisons?

After 14 years as part of Britain’s corporate aristocracy, Morrisons is once again shopping for investors in the cheaper aisles of the FTSE 250. But can it find a way back? There are no easy answers.

What must keep the new management up at night is that this is only be the first trap-door that they are in danger of falling through. There has been vague speculation about private equity bids rescuing the group. But it’s just hard to see why a private equity bidder would be interested. They like a sure thing, and what recent history has proven is that there are no sure answers to the entry of cut price disrupters like Aldi and Lidl into the Britain grocery market.

That’s why there have been so few buyers even with the shares trading at a discount. Investors are well aware that the discount might be even bigger come the January sales. And that still may not tempt them. They’ll follow the shoppers, and they’re going elsewhere.