NEW YORK – Move over Jeff Bezos, there’s a new No. 2 on the list of world’s richest people.
Meta CEO and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s net wealth climbed to $206.2 billion on Thursday, topping the former Amazon CEO and president’s net worth of $205.1 billion.
Still on top is Tesla chief Elon Musk, whose net worth is about $50 billion more than Zuckerberg’s on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, CNBC said.
Zuckerberg’s rise to the second spot on the index reflects how his personal wealth has grown alongside investor enthusiasm over the social media giant’s rising profits this year, CNBC said.
He has a 13% stake in Meta. His net worth has increased $78 billion since the beginning of the year, more than any of the 500 richest people that the Bloomberg Index tracks.
Meta shares closed at a record high on Thursday at $582.77, up about 68% from early January when its shares were trading at $346.29. Shares on Friday were trading even higher, listed at nearly $587 shortly before 10 a.m. EST.
Meta says its hefty artificial intelligence investments have improved the performance of its online advertising platform, prompting sales growth. The company’s online advertising system suffered a major setback in 2021 when Apple introduced an iOS privacy update that weakened its ability to track users across the web, CNBC said. Meta in February 2022 said that the privacy changes would cost it $10 billion in revenue.
Zuckerberg instituted a major cost-cutting plan in late 2022 that ultimately resulted in 21,000 Meta workers, about one quarter of the workforce, losing their jobs.
Investors reacted favorably to Meta’s cost cutting while the company’s online advertising business began to rebound.
