Meta Platforms’ boss Mark Zuckerberg has been steadily moving upward in the rankings of the richest people in the world and he is really close to occupying the top position in the list! But how did he do it, and what does it mean for him to possibly be crowned the wealthiest person on the face of the earth?
A Billion-Dollar Boost
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index reveals that Zuckerberg’s net worth grew this year by $51 billion alone! The total wealth that he has is now $ 179 billion. With such an amount of money, he could buy all the coffee shops across the circumference of the Earth and still be left with change for a space expedition!
At the current time, Mark Zuckerberg occupies the fourth place in the list of billionaires and is ranked lower than Tesla’s Elon Musk who is worth $248 billion, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, $202 billion, and LVMH’s Bernard Arnault, $180 billion. As recent as last week, Zuckerberg was ranked third most secure CEO in the UK.
Zooming Past the Competition
More astounding is the speed that Zuckerberg has been gaining on his billionaire peers. Even Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos who also experienced their net worth growth this year have significantly lower figures compared to Zuckerberg’s increase. While Musk contributed $19 billion, and Bezos $25 billion, what about Zuckerberg? He now soared past them like a driver in Formula 1 and increased his wealth by $ 51 billion.
Meta Was Not Built in a Day
The financial gains for Zuckerberg were not immediate. Now, if we could roll back the time to 2004 when Mark Zuckerberg was only 19 years old, he initiated Facebook. Flash forward to 2012, which is the year he decided to go public with the company at the young age of 28. Since then, Meta, previously known as Facebook, has evolved into a giant technology company with a market capitalization of $1.3 trillion. Currently, Meta stands as the seventh-largest public firm on the earth.
However, Zuckerberg’s road to becoming one of the youngest billionaires hasn’t always run smoothly. Over the period between September 2021 and November 2022, Meta’s stock plummeted below 75%, a staggering figure. At that time, Zuckerberg was valued at $35 billion, although that will still look like an achievement to many people.
After the drop at the mentioned years, it has risen to more than five times its low, and has been up by an impressive 65 percent within the past year. People have high expectations from Meta, especially since it is putting a lot of capital into artificial intelligence (AI), and so far it has been profitable. At the present time, Meta has stocks that hover around the $500 mark, which is impressive.
What’s Next for Zuckerberg?
If only Zuckerberg continues with his trend of a rise in wealth, he stands a chance of overtaking Arnault, Bezos, Musk, and maybe even becoming the wealthiest man on earth. That would make him the ultimate king of the billionaire hill. For now, we will just watch and hope that his AI empire can continue to expand at such a rapid pace.
