According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth reached $206.2 billion on October 3, higher than Jeff Bezos’ $205.1 billion. The Facebook co-founder is now only $50 billion behind the world’s richest man – Elon Musk.

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Mark Zuckerberg demonstrates a prototype of smart glasses at the Meta global developer conference. Photo: Bloomberg

With a 13% stake in Meta, Zuckerberg's net worth has increased by $78 billion since the beginning of the year, more than anyone on the Fortune 500 list of global billionaires.

At the close of trading on October 3, Meta's stock price closed at an all-time high of $582.77, up 68% since the beginning of January.

According to CNBC , the Meta boss's rise to second place in the rankings emphasizes the fluctuation of his personal assets along with investor excitement over the social networking giant's business results.

In July, Meta announced a 22% increase in second-quarter revenue to $39.07 billion, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of revenue growth above 20%.

Facebook's parent company points to costly investments in AI that have helped improve the efficiency of its online advertising platform.

Meta's online advertising ecosystem took a serious hit in 2021 when Apple introduced new privacy updates on iOS that weakened its ability to track users across websites.

In February 2022, the group predicted it could lose $10 billion in revenue due to this change.

In late 2022, Zuckerberg initiated a massive cost-cutting plan that continued into the following year and ultimately resulted in 21,000 Meta employees losing their jobs, equivalent to a quarter of the workforce.

Investors were pleased with the aggressive measures, while the advertising business bounced back, bolstered by massive digital ad spending campaigns from Chinese retailers like Temu and Shein.

While Meta continues to spend billions on the virtual and augmented reality technology needed to prepare for the virtual universe, investors have also become more tolerant of those investments, as long as its core advertising business remains healthy.

(According to CNBC)