Mark Zuckerberg Joins $200 Billion Club, Becomes World’s 4th Richest Person

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has officially entered the exclusive $200 billion club, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. The Meta boss’ fortune now stands at $201 billion, making him the fourth-richest person in the world.

Zuckerberg is now placed just behind Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($211 billion), LVMH Chairman Bernard Arnault ($207 billion), and Tesla’s Elon Musk, the world’s richest person with a mind-boggling fortune of $272 billion.

The bulk of Zuckerberg’s wealth is attributed to his 13 per cent stake in Meta, amounting to approximately 345.5 million shares. This year alone, his fortune skyrocketed by a staggering $73.4 billion, propelled by a steep  rise in Meta’s stock price. Since January 2024, Meta’s shares have surged nearly 60 per cent, reaching record highs of over $560 per share.

The rise in Meta’s valuation has been fuelled by strong investor confidence, with the social-media giant currently trading at about 24 times its forward earnings, nearing Nasdaq 100’s average of 26 times. 

The 40-year-old has emphasized the company’s ambitious plans for artificial intelligence, as witnessed in the recently held Meta Connect 2024 event. Meta AI is projected to become one of the most widely used digital assistants, with nearly 500 million monthly active users—despite not having launched in major markets like the European Union yet.

Zuckerberg’s rise to the $200 billion mark is part of the current trend of growing number of tech leaders whose wealth expanded dramatically in 2024. For instance, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang saw his net worth shoot up by $62.2 billion, while Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison gained $58.6 billion.

The growth in his fortune now keeps him ahead of other tech forces such as Ellison and former Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

Zuckerberg’s financial resurgence is noteworthy given the setbacks he faced in 2022, when his metaverse investments led to a sharp decline in his net worth, wiping off over $100 billion. 

However, Meta’s strategic development—driven by AI innovations like its Orion augmented reality glasses—has helped transform the company from a social media platform into a hardware producer, and one of the contenders in the AI space. 

Reason Behind Mark Zuckerberg’s Financial Growth

Transforming the company from Facebook  to Meta started bearing fruits with its Orion augmented reality glasses, the report said. 

“With the confluence of Meta’s hardware improvements over the last five years and progress with AI, Orion represents Meta’s evolution from a social media company to a Metaverse company,” the report cited. 

Also Read: Meta Launches New Smart Glasses And Headsets For The Metaverse

The development comes on the backdrop of Meta cutting 25% of its global workforce and pumping in money further into AI-generated creators, which interact one-on-one with online fans.

The California-based also introduced a $50 billion share buyback program and its first-ever quarterly dividend with an aim to improve its stock performance.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, generated $134.9 billion in revenue in 2023, and boasts of around four billion monthly users.