After declining about $20 billion in 2018, Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune is bouncing back, Bloomerg says.
Facebook Inc. shares (FB) jumped Thursday in New York trading — increasing his net worth by about $4.6 billion — after the social-networking firm reported first-quarter earnings Wednesday night that won near-unanimous praise from Wall Street analysts.
That brings his year-to-date advance to $24 billion, the most of anyone on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The co-founder of the world’s largest social-media business saw his fortune fall US$3.3 billion (NZD$4.5b) on Saturday (NZ time) after he posted plans to shift users’ news feeds toward content from family and friends at the expense of material from media outlets and businesses.
Shares of Menlo Park, California-based Facebook tumbled 4.5 per cent on Friday in New York, cutting Zuckerberg’s fortune to US$74 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
He lost his place as the world’s fourth-richest person to Spanish retail billionaire Amancio Ortega.
Zuckerberg’s gain tops that of Bernard Arnault, who has seen his fortune increase $23 billion in 2019. Jeff Bezos would have topped both except for the finalization of his divorce from MacKenzie Bezos, which cut his net worth by $36 billion this month and wiped out his 2019 gains.
Facebook Inc. shares (FB) were up 7.2 percent to $195.78 at 9:55 a.m. and have climbed 49 percent this year.
