Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune has passed $100bn (£76bn) for the first time, adding him to an ultra rich club of world’s centibillionaire.
He crossed the milestone on Thursday after Facebook’s shares surged on news it is to launch a rival to the video-sharing app TikTok. On Wednesday, Facebook announced US roll out of Instagram reels which led to a rise of more than 6 percent of shared on Thursday. Zuckerberg owns a 13% stake in Facebook and the development added him to the exclusive club of the world’s centibillionaires.
The introduction of Reels also came a week after Facebook recorded strong earnings. Last Thursday, the company said it had reached a new record of 3 billion users across its platforms, including chat platform WhatsApp and photo-sharing app Instagram.
Facebook launched reels of Instagram after the US President Donald Trump issued bans on American companies transacting with its parent company, ByteDance, and Tencent, which owns the WeChat messaging service.
The Facebook CEO has now joined thee Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates, Microsoft’s founder, as the only people who have status according to the Bloomberg their net worth over $ 100 bn.
Facebook employees have been working from home amid coronavirus pandemic. Zuckerberg’s net worth has rise by about $22bn this year, while Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ fortune has jumped bu more than $75 bn.
Zuckerberg co-founded Facebook at his Harvard dorm room in 2014. According to Bloomberg Billionaires index, which tracks the world’s wealthiest people, Zuckeberg’s biggest asset is his 13 percent stake in Facebook.
