13 hours Ago By Rob Thubron
What just happened? Mark Zuckerberg has achieved a lot during his long career in the tech industry, but yesterday saw the Meta CEO achieve another first: he is now the second richest person in the world, having passed Jeff Bezos after his total net worth reached $206 billion. Things weren't looking rosy for Meta in 2022 as it suffered a downturn following the pandemic boom period. For the first time since its inception 17 years ago, the number of global daily Facebook users declined as the company's shares fell 24%, wiping $200 billion off its market value.
But Meta's shares have skyrocketed since then, climbing from $90 in November 2022 to $582.77 today. The price has increased over 64% during the year-to-date period alone.
Meta's success has seen Zuckerberg's fortune climb to $206 billion – he has a 13% stake in the company – putting him ahead of third-place Bezos by $1 billion, though the Meta boss is still $50 billion behind leader Elon Musk. Courtesy of Bloomberg One area of the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index where Zuckerberg does lead is the year-to-date change. His wealth has increased an enormous $78.
1 billion this year, almost $15 billion more than second-place Jensen Huang, whose fortune has jumped $63.5 billion on the back of Nvidia providing the majority of the advanced AI hardware being used today. As is sadly so often the case, Meta's turnaround was prompted by a streamlining process that saw 21,000 people let go from the firm.
Investors welcomed the cost-cutting move, sending the stock in the right direction. Meta's stock price over the last five years Meta has reported better-than-expected sales this year, and is pushing hard into the generative AI field with its own Large Language Models and chatbots – the sort of stuff that investors love, even if most of the public isn't as enthusiastic. Meta's stock has reached an all-time high following Meta Connect 2024, which had huge focus on artificial intelligence.
The company also revealed several new tech products, including a pair of AR smart glasses capable of projecting holograms directly into a user's field of vision. Jensen Huang called the Project Orion glasses "a big deal.".
