Mark Zuckerberg, an American entrepreneur and philanthropist recently beat Tesla founder Elon Musk to become the 3rd richest man in the world.
Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and CEO of Facebook is a social media as well as networking platform, launched in February 2004. Currently, there are over 3 billion Facebook users, nearly half the global population. As per recently published Bloomberg Billionaires Index Mark Zuckerberg pushed X-owner Elon Musk to fourth position to become the third-richest man in the world. It’s the first time since Nov. 16, 2020, Zuckerberg has ranked into the top three on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. At that time, the Facebook owner had net worth of $105.6 billion and Elon Musk had $102.1 billion net worth. As per recent list, Elon Musk is at 4th position with $180.6 billion and Zuckerberg has a net worth of $186.9 billion.
Well, the rivalry between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk is not a new thing. Both Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg were engaged in a public spat during the launch of Threads, a social-media platform to compete with Musk owned X. Even, both the billionaires hinted for a cage fight!
In this article, we will discuss some unique strategies of Mark Zuckerberg which made him gaining a lot of wealth in past two years.
How Facebook makes money? Many people are yet to know the answer. The revenue comes from advertising. In 2023, Meta generated around $135 billion, among which approximately $132 billion came from advertising (a whopping 97.8% of the total revenues). It received $1.9 billion from Reality Labs including augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) products wing. The rest $1 billion came from other revenue sources. Till now, Meta is the biggest source of wealth generation for Mark Zuckerberg.
In uncertain global economy, Musk’s wealth has been shrunk by $48.4 billion in 2023. On the other hand, Meta kept on gaining more in 2023.
Tech giants like Facebook experienced significant gains due to the Artificial Intelligence growth. In 2023, Meta Platforms has observed an increase of 134% in the value of its stocks. This is driven by both AI boom and several cost-cutting measures implemented by Mark Zuckerberg. He personally gained around $58 billion in last year.
The technology innovations are dominated by AI, which has exponential growth potential. With increasing demand among public, it is generating remarkable returns on investments. It is also opening doors for disruptive investment opportunities.
You might be surprised to know that, Mark Zuckerberg has sold some shares in last year, even after that, he gained wealth.
In November and December of 2023, Mark Zuckerberg sold almost half a billion dollars of Meta shares. And Meta stock saw an increase by 186% over the past year. Although many experts mentioned it as a bad move, but, here are the potential reasons behind it. Zuckerberg’s shares are totally valued and he wanted to take money back with the recent valuation of stocks.
As 2024 is the US election year and there are some geopolitical conflicts going on across the globe, this is an uncertain time. So, the businessmen wished to take advantage of ongoing tax breaks brought during Donald Trump’s administration. However, Mark Zuckerberg is still holding the majority of his shares in Meta.
Meanwhile, the same strategy was applied by Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon.
As per the Bloomberg Billionaires List 2024, Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are holding the first two positions with net worth of $223.4 billion and $207.3 billion, respectively.
