Mark Zuckerberg is richer by $10 billion as Meta declares great quarter results
On Thursday, the net worth of Meta’s Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg swelled dramatically with a massive post-earnings rally for his company’s stock, making the 38-year-old billionaire more than twice as rich as he was six months ago. In the early phase of Thursday trading, the shares of Meta gained up to 14% hitting a 14-month high after the firm’s Wednesday earnings report smashed analyst expectations for profit and revenue. Mark Zuckerberg is the Facebook parent’s largest individual shareholder. His wealth grew by $10.3 amid the rally, according to Forbes’ calculations.
At the present time, Zuckerberg holds an $85.1 billion fortune, about 140% higher than it was last fall. The past year has been difficult for Meta as its shares hovered at a seven-year low. With all this, Mark’s net worth is still far below its 2021 peak of $136.4 billion. To mention, Zuckerberg’s net worth has now risen by more than $10 billion following each of Meta’s last two earnings reports, having tacked on some $12 billion following the February report that similarly topped top and bottom-line estimates. With this surge in net worth, Zuckerberg leapfrogged Spanish fast-fashion mogul Amancio Ortega to become the world’s 14th-wealthiest person. This week has been a very lucky week for Meta’s stocks as Thursday proved to be the sixth-best day ever. Before this, February 2 was the day with the second largest gains ever with a 23% surge in stocks.
After cutting 21,000 jobs and other expenses in the first quarter of 2023, Meta witnessed good growth in terms of profit. Facebook’s parent Meta notched $28.6 billion in revenue over the first three months of 2023 and $5.7 billion in net income. The company continues to regain faith from investors as Zuckerberg leads a push to rein in costs and refocus on the company’s bread-and-butter advertising business. Shares of the firm are up more than 90% year to date, recovering a good deal of the stock’s 76% crash between September 2021 and October. Last year, the company’s stocks slumped amid its push into augmented and virtual reality, or the metaverse. In its last less than two year’s existence, the metaverse division has lost roughly $20 billion. At the same time, Meta’s social media operations have proven resilient, with revenue from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp growing 4% year-over-year.
In its business, Meta has faced a lot of challenges, but undoubtedly, all of them have been largely temporary. The world is waiting to watch how Meta can leverage the artificial intelligence boom. In the Wednesday’s earning call, Zuckerberg mentioned AI some 18 times in his opening statement, asserting his firm is “no longer behind” competitors in “building out our AI infrastructure.” Mark Zuckerberg also claimed that the company’s metaverse and artificial intelligence pushes are quite interlinked. Alongside, investors will pay a close eye to see if Zuckerberg and the company can avoid multibillion-dollar cash bleeds in its fresh foray.