At the Meta Connect developer conference, Mark Zuckerberg, head of the Facebook group Meta, showed off a prototype of computer glasses that can display digital objects in transparent lenses.
Andrei Sokolov | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has overtaken Jeff Bezos to become the second richest person in the world.
Zuckerberg’s net worth reportedly reached $206.2 billion on Thursday. Bloomberg Billionaires Indexsurpassing the former Amazon CEO and president’s net worth of $205.1 billion. The Facebook co-founder currently trails Tesla chief Elon Musk by about $50 billion, according to the index.
Zuckerberg, who owns 13% of Meta, has seen his net worth rise by $78 billion since the beginning of the year, more than any other member of the Bloomberg Index’s 500 richest people. Meta stock closed at an all-time high of $582.77 on Thursday. This represents an increase of about 68% since early January, when the company’s stock was trading at $346.29.
Zuckerberg’s rise to No. 2 on the index on Thursday highlights how his personal wealth has increased along with investor enthusiasm for the social media giant’s increased profits this year.
Wall Street continued to root for Meta throughout 2024, as the company consistently reported quarterly profits that beat analyst estimates. Meta announced in July that second-quarter sales rose 22% to $39.07 billion, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of revenue growth of more than 20%.
Meta points to its significant investment in artificial intelligence, which is helping improve the performance of its online advertising platform, as the reason for the increase in sales. The company’s online advertising system suffered a major setback in 2021 when Apple introduced iOS privacy updates that weakened its ability to track users across the web. Meta announced in February 2022 that privacy changes would result in $10 billion in lost revenue.
In late 2022, Zuckerberg announced a massive cost-cutting plan that will extend into the following year and ultimately result in the loss of 21,000 Meta employees, about a quarter of the company’s workforce. This was the result.
Investors reacted favorably to Meta’s cost cuts, but the company’s online advertising business began to recover, buoyed by large digital ad spending campaigns from China-linked retailers Tem and Xian.
While Meta continues to spend billions of dollars on the virtual reality and augmented reality technology needed to support Metaverse’s futuristic concept, investors are betting that as long as the company’s core advertising business remains healthy. They are more open to investing.
Last week, Meta announced the Orion AR glasses, which received positive reviews from the few people who tested the prototypes.
clock: CNBC reviews Meta’s Orion AR glasses prototype
