Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg’s initial bet on Metaverse looked like a huge mistake, erasing more than $100 billion (about Rs 839,111.3 crore) from his net worth. But now it has paid off a lot of time.

Zuckerberg’s net worth was backed by a record dollar-platform stock price, climbing nearly sixfold to $201 billion in less than two years (approximately Rs 16,86,611.17 crore), his first record of over $200 billion (approximately Rs 16,78,226 crore). He moved to fourth place on the world’s 500 wealthiest people after Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault.

While other tech giants are growing net worth this year, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s wealth has more than doubled his fortune to $1006.2 billion (about Rs 8911.38 crore), none of whom has as much wealth as Zuckerberg’s. His wealth has increased by $73.4 billion (approximately Rs 615.908 crore) since January 1, thanks to his 13% stake in Meta. The stock closed at its all-time high on Wednesday, up 60% this year.

A far cry from 2022, when stocks and Zuckerberg’s net worth changed dramatically after his company, Promise was a tenacious man, including name change and substantial investment in Metaverse. At the time, Meta worked hard to find her position with short videos through her competitor Tiktok’s popularity. Now, analysts believe that the pivot from Facebook to Meta has finally come true as the company vigorously tilts its Orion augmented reality glasses.

“As Meta hardware improvements converge and advances in AI, Orion represents the evolution of Meta from social media companies to meta-companies,” JMP Securities analysts wrote in a note to investors this week.

Since 2022, Meta has reduced its global workforce by 25%. The Monlo Park, California-based company has taken action to improve its stock performance, including a $50 billion (approximately Rs 4189,280 crore) share buyback program and Meta’s first-ever quarterly dividend.

It also jumped on the AI (AI) trend, spending a lot on data centers and computing power as Zuckerberg is committed to building a leading position in the AI competition across the industry. The company recently announced further investment in AI-generated creators who interact one-on-one with online fans.

Zuckerberg’s public image has also changed dramatically from two years ago. The 40-year-old CEO, previously portrayed as a nerdy technician, has been engaged in awakening and mixed martial arts. A seven-foot statue of his wife Priscilla Chan has been raring on Instagram recently, with Zuckerberg claiming he “brings back to Rome’s tradition of making your wife’s sculptures.”

He also said he plans to stay away from politics. After earlier raised his views on social justice, inequality and immigration, he regretted some of his political activities.

“The political environment, I don’t think I have much complexity, I think I just fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem,” he said during a live podcast event in San Francisco.