Facebook's dominance on the social media scene may be perceived to be waning but this hasn't stopped its founder and CEO of Meta Mark Zuckerberg from crossing USD 200 billion net worth mark and becoming fourth richest person in the world with net worth of USD 201 billion. Tesla CEO Elon Musk retains the top position with a staggering net worth of USD 272 billion. Amazon's Jeff Bezos is in second place (USD 211 billion) while LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault is in third place (USD 207 billion).
There has been an increase of USD 73.4 billion in Zuckerberg's net worth this year with Meta's share appreciating by 60 per cent since January 2024. The shares have reached record-high of USD 560.
Facebook, once the most dominant social media network, has somewhat lost its sheen. Even when Instagram, the photo-sharing platform owned by Facebook's parent company Meta, is booming. The 'OG' Facebook has seen drop in number of users as younger users have preferred other platforms.
The metaverse, Mark Zuckerberg's ambitious project did not take-off as it was expected when it was launched in 2019. The metaverse project caused decrease of USD 100 billion in Zuckerberg's wealth a few years ago. However, Meta has been able to recoup somewhat and Zuckerberg's net worth has followed upward trajectory.
The buzz surrounding metaverse markedly died down after launch of ChatGPT which set-off massive boom in Artificial Intelligence (AI) development.
Meta jumped on the bandwagon in late 2023 and early 2024 as it launched Meta AI.
