Zuckerberg is currently the world’s 11th richest individual (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images).
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Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune hit the $100 billion threshold Thursday for the first time since February 2022, making him the world’s 11th richest person, per Forbes’ calculations. Shares of Meta Platforms, where Zuckerberg is CEO and cofounder, rose 3% for the day, lifting his fortune by $3 billion. Meta Platforms is the parent company of social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as virtual reality arm Oculus.
Meta’s share price has been rising steadily since hitting a trough in November 2022, notching a nearly 220% gain. In November last year, Zuckerberg was worth $32.8 billion and ranked the world’s 29th richest. He fell out of the world’s top 10 richest in September 2022.
Meta’s stock is up largely due to analyst and investor optimism around the company’s cost cutting, which included 21,000 layoffs since November 2022. Zuckerberg has branded 2023 the “year of efficiency” for Meta.
Meta stock rebounded this week from a 2.8% drop last week, which market watchers tied to Apple’s launch of its new virtual reality headset, a competitor to Meta’s Quest. Meta has spent billions to gain market share in the virtual reality space.
The rise in Meta’s stock came amid a good day for stock indices: the S&P 500, the Nasdaq and the Dow Jones Industrial Average each closed up more than 1%, in part as a reaction to the Federal Reserve’s decision Wednesday to pause interest rate hikes. Meta’s stock is up 126% this year, far outpacing the tech-heavy Nasdaq’s 33% rise.
As of Thursday’s market close, Zuckerberg’s net worth is just $800 million shy of Google cofounder Sergey Brin, who is currently the world’s 10th richest.
Still, Zuckerberg’s fortune still falls short of its September 2021 peak of $136.4 billion.
