Mark Zuckerberg grew to become the world’s second-richest individual for the primary time Thursday, leaping forward of Jeff Bezos as shares of Meta Platforms Inc. proceed to climb.
Zuckerberg’s wager on the metaverse — which initially regarded like an enormous bust — has paid off in current months, pushing his web value to a high-water mark of $206.2 billion, in response to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That places him $1.1 billion forward of Amazon.com Inc.’s Bezos and virtually $50 billion behind Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk.
Meta shares have risen 23% since reporting better-than-expected gross sales within the second quarter and touting its push into the kind of giant language fashions that energy AI chatbots. The inventory closed Thursday at all-time excessive of $582.77.
Meta has spent closely on knowledge facilities and computing energy as Zuckerberg works to construct a number one place within the industry-wide AI race. The corporate has additionally moved forward with different long-term tasks, together with its Orion augmented actuality glasses, which the corporate launched final month.
Zuckerberg, who owns a 13% stake within the Menlo Park, California-based firm, has seen his fortune develop $78 billion to this point this yr, probably the most of any of the world’s 500 richest folks tracked by the Bloomberg index.
The 40-year-old co-founder and chief government officer has gained 4 spots this yr on the wealth index.
