- The man behind Meta has overtaken Jeff Bezos to be second richest in the world
- Increase in wealth largely down to impressive share price of Meta
- Four of five richest men in the world made their fortunes in the tech space
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now the second richest man in the world, having just passed Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to the accolade.
Wealth boosted
Zuckerberg is now worth $206 billion, just the $1 billion ahead of Bezos. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter), remains the richest man in the world, with a fortune of $256 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
However, Zuckerberg is catching up Musk. In the past year, Zuckerberg’s wealth has grown by more than $78 billion, while Musk’s has grown by a paltry $27 billion.
The main reason for such a growth in Zuckerberg’s wealth is that Meta’s share price has recently rocketed. It has increased by 64% in 2024 so far and stands at $582, at the time of writing. Less than two years ago, Meta’s share price stood at $90 per share. Given that Zuckerberg has a 13% stake in Meta, it means his wealth has also shot up.
Indeed, Zuckerberg’s wealth has grown faster than any of the other 499 wealthiest people in the world on Bloomberg’s index this year.
Below the top three, Bernard Arnault is the 4th richest man, with a net worth of $193 billion. He is followed by Larry Ellison, who is worth $179 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Meta’s success has been down to increasing revenues, investment in AI and also a successful streamlining of the business, which saw 21,000 people lose their jobs.
Post-Meta plans
But while Zuckerberg has made a fortune from Meta, he has said what he’d like to do if he ever gave up his role. In an exclusive chat with Pubity at Meta’s annual Connect event in Menlo Park, California, last week, Zuckerberg discussed what he could do post-Meta.
