Zuckerberg Surpasses Bezos as World’s Second Richest

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has become the world’s second richest person. Overtaking Amazon’s owner Jeff Bezos, Zuckerberg climbed to the second spot in the world’s richest individuals list for the first time on Thursday (October 3). 

As Meta Platform’s shares continued to soar, he surpassed Bezos, who has a net worth of $205 billion, by over a billion dollars to claim the second position.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zuckerberg’s total net worth has crossed $206 billion (Rs. 276 billion). This is $50 billion less than the top billionaire, Elon Musk. Meta’s shares surged 23% after the company reported better-than-expected sales in the second quarter and emphasized the type of large language models that power artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots.

The stock closed at an all-time high of $582.77 on Thursday. Meta has been spending heavily on data centers and computing power as Zuckerberg works to build a leading position in the industry-wide AI race. The company is also pushing forward with other long-term projects, including the Orion augmented reality glasses launched last month. Zuckerberg, who owns a 13% stake in the Menlo Park, California-based company, has seen his wealth increase by $78 billion so far this year.

This is the most among the world’s 500 richest people tracked by the Bloomberg Index.