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A sweet story about a young couple seeing all their dreams come true has quickly turned into a different tale of cold financial calculation that could only warm the heart of a tax accountant.
As you probably know by now, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg married his college sweetheart, Priscilla Chan, this weekend; just one day after becoming a billionaire 19 times over. The surprise backyard ceremony also happened to take place just days after she graduated from medical school, providing the perfect opportunity for the couple to officially launch the next chapter of their lives together. It was all very cute and romantic until everyone — including The New York Times — noticed that by waiting until the day after cashing in his fortune, Zuckerberg conveniently protected his billions from California's communal property law.
Under that state's marriage laws, everything a couple earns or buys after they become hitched is split equally between the partners should they ever get divorced. However, anything they owned before the marriage is theirs to keep. On Friday, Zuckerberg clearly established his pre-marriage net worth. Had he tied the knot on Thursday, the financial picture of the relationship would have been much murkier.