Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Meta, the world’s most popular social media company, is now estimated to have a net worth of $125 billion.
The American-born billionaire, based on historical data from the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, is the youngest individual ever to surpass a net worth of $100 billion. With a net worth of $125 billion, the 37-year-old tech entrepreneur can buy 69.8 million troy ounces of gold or 1.68 billion barrels of crude oil.
According to Bloomberg billionaires index data, Zuckerberg has gained $21.4 billion in wealth since 2021. Based on the company’s 2021 proxy statement, Zuckerberg’s fortune is derived from a 13% stake in Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook.
2.8 billion people are active monthly on the world’s largest social network, according to the company’s January 2021 presentation. In the largest technology IPO in history at the time, Facebook sold shares in an IPO on May 17, 2012. Several trusts and holding companies own the shares, according to the proxy.
Modelling its business differently
Facebook shareholders have been handsomely rewarded for the company’s continued dominance of the social media landscape with an annualized return of nearly 25% since its IPO in 2012.
Despite the recent achievement of Facebook’s trillion-dollar market value, the law of large numbers is now exerting significant headwinds on the company’s growth prospects. Zuckerberg is probably aware that his social network has peaked in terms of profitability. In the future, he expects the bulk of the company’s revenue to come from new, undiscovered business areas.
In recent years, Facebook has had difficulty generating consistent revenue growth for its investors. Even Facebook’s colourful rebranding does not conceal the fact that the company remains almost entirely dependent on its advertising business.
Changing the narrative of a slow-growing user base successfully was accomplished by refocusing the headlines on the new opportunities of VR, AR, and most notably the metaverse for Facebook. As a result, Facebook is planning to invest at least $10 billion this year in expanding its metaverse. The metaverse is expected to reach a billion people and host hundreds of billions in digital commerce within the next decade, writes Zuckerberg in October.
The majority of Zuckerberg’s fortune will be donated to charity. The Newark, New Jersey, public school system received $100 million in Facebook shares in September 2010.
The Silicon Valley Community Foundation has also received 36 million shares from him. A baby girl was born to Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan in December 2015. The couple welcomed their second child in August 2017.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the same day that he will donate 99% of the company’s stock to philanthropic causes during his lifetime.
