Mark Zuckerberg’s bet on the metaverse initially looked like a colossal mistake, wiping out more than $100 billion (roughly Rs. 8,39,113 crores) from his net worth. But now it’s paying off in a big way.
Buoyed by Meta Platforms’ record high share price, Zuckerberg’s net worth has grown nearly six-fold in less than two years to $201 billion (roughly Rs. 16,86,617 crore), the first time he has crossed the $200 billion mark (roughly Rs. 16). 78,226 crore), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He moved to fourth place on the list of the 500 richest people in the world behind Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault.
While other tech titans have made big jumps in net worth this year — for example, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang more than doubled his fortune to $106.2 billion (roughly Rs. 8,91,138 crore) — none have grown as much as Zuckerberg’s . He added $73.4 billion (roughly Rs. 6,15,908 crore) to his wealth as of January 1, thanks to his 13 percent stake in Meta. The stock closed at an all-time high on Wednesday and is up 60 percent this year.
It’s a long way from 2022, when the stock and Zuckerberg’s net worth plummeted after his company underwent major changes, including a name change and major investments in the metaverse. At the time, Meta was struggling to find a foothold with short-form video, while competitor TikTok was growing in popularity. Now, analysts think the transition from Facebook to Meta is finally happening as the company leans heavily on its Orion Augmented Reality glasses.
“Combining Meta’s hardware improvements over the past five years and advances with artificial intelligence, Orion represents Meta’s evolution from a social media company to a Metaverse company,” JMP Securities analysts wrote in a note to investors this week.
Since 2022, Meta has laid off tens of thousands of employees, reducing its global workforce by 25 percent. The Menlo Park, California-based company has taken steps to improve the performance of its stock, including a $50 billion (roughly Rs. 4,18,928 crore) share buyback program and Meta’s first-ever quarterly dividend.
He has also jumped on the artificial intelligence (AI) bandwagon, spending heavily on data centers and computing power as Zuckerberg works to build a leadership position in the industry-wide AI race. The company recently announced further investment in AI-generated creators, which interact one-on-one with online fans.
Zuckerberg’s public image has also changed dramatically from two years ago. Previously introduced as a geeky techie, the 40-year-old CEO has taken up wakesurfing and mixed martial arts. A photo of a seven-foot statue of his wife Priscilla Chan recently went viral on Instagram, with Zuckerberg claiming he was “bringing back the Roman tradition of making sculptures of your wife.”
He also said he plans to stay out of politics. Having previously expressed his views on social justice, inequality and immigration issues, he has since publicly expressed regret for some of his political activities.
“The political environment, I don’t think I had a lot of sophistication, and I think I just misdiagnosed the problem,” he said during a live podcast event in San Francisco.
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