Great man Great Heart, Zuckerberg

He said they were donating their fortune to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative because they wanted to make the world a better place for Max to grow up in.

The donation amounts to $45bn (£30bn) at Facebook's current value.

However the shares will not be donated to charity immediately, but over the course of the couple's lives.

Were Mr Zuckerberg to give away 99% of his shares immediately, he would still possess hundreds of millions of dollars. Ms Chan's worth has not been documented.

Max was born last week, although her birth was only made public on Tuesday.

In his letter Mr Zuckerberg said the aim of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is "to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation".

Its initial areas of focus will be personalised learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.

No longer should billionaires wait to die before handing over money to a different generation, Buffet said, in a gushing approval of Silicon Valley's newest and most influential power couple.

Everything Mark Zuckerberg does is eyed with intense scrutiny, not least due to the nature of Facebook's business of making money from personal data. 

But while the 31-year-old's previous charitable efforts have been criticised for being too focused on building Facebook's user base, this latest pledge appears to leave the Facebook business to one side.

It's a continuation of what we've seen developing over the past six months, where Zuckerberg appears at ease hosting heads of state as he does in the company of his own development team. 

The days of Mark Zuckerberg being seen as a nerdy, awkward tech dork are well behind us.

His ambition now is clearly to be a significant figure on the global political stage.

The letter highlighted the important role of technology in achieving the couple's goals of advancing human potential and equality.

"Many of the greatest opportunities for your generation will come from giving everyone access to the internet," Mr Zuckerberg wrote to his daughter.